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Buffalo Medicine Books
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Butterfly Lost
David Cole's Butterfly Lost, a paperback original, is the most literary of the new crop of books. For many readers "literary" has become somewhat pejorative-somehow meaning pretentious or precious, or perhaps just obscure. In the case of this delightfully written mystery it simply means that the author makes the creative-even unique-use of language we used to routinely expect from creative writers. Cole can craft a metaphor of tremendous power and style without interrupting his story or disturbing the reader's narrative flow. Only an old English teacher is going to have to stop and admire the jewel.
The book opens with a terrifying dream sequence with an uncertain point of view. This nightmare is full of Hopi imagery and sets the scene for everything that follows. Be reassured, Cole is not a new contender in the broad field of Hillerman imitators. The opening sentence establishes the uneasy relationship between sacred traditionalism and the modern reality of the shabby, poverty-ridden physical world. "A giant Kachina stood just inside the rusted screen door." The magical world of native spiritualism meets shabby reality.
The conflict between the spiritual world, a place of magic and fearsome beauty, and the physical world of fearful poverty, violence and rejection underlies the whole book-propelling the central character, a middle-aged woman who long ago gave up the spiritual life of her people as she persued a journey of self discovery. Along the way she solves the riddle of a serial killer with a taste for young Indian girls.
It turns out that Laura Winslow is just one of many fake ID s in this woman's wallet. There have been so many over the years she seems to have forgotten-or totally rejected-her Hopi heritage and the name of Butterfly. Curiously, however, she has come back after many years to her homeland, though she is in deep cover, as they say. She uses her computer hacking skills to assist her Navajo partner with his manhunting activities for regional bail bondsmen. The hours are flexible and the pay is real good.
For some reason Laura thinks she's both invulnerable and invisible, so the arrival of a Hopi elder on her doorstep seems to rattle her quite a bit. He seems to know a lot about her that he shouldn't and he needs her help to find his missing granddaughter. For reasons she doesn't understand she can't say no. It turns out there are a lot of young girls, Hopi and Navajo, missing from the Big Rez the two tribes share.
Her own background as a Hopi is revealed slowly as a sort of counterpoint to the discoveries she makes about the missing girls, who have been lured away from the boring familiarity of the traditional lifestyle by the illusion of glamour and the good life perpetuated by every magazine ad, Hollywood creation, and television sitcom. Everywhere but here life is exciting and wonderful. Drugs and action and fun and material satisfaction are out there, just for the taking.
Butterfly Lost, is both familiar and exotic. Cole, while avoiding much real cultural material, still manages to suggest the huge and unbridgeable gulf between traditional Indian life and the possibilities of American self-indulgence. Laura's partner is seduced by the relatively easy wealth of his new lifestyle-equally seduced by the adrenaline rush of sanctioned violence. He's having too much fun.
The Reservation police walk the fine line between the two worlds, trying to be part of both, mediating them as best they can when they come into conflict. In usual police style they don't know what to make of Laura and her peculiar vocation. And, like police everywhere, they resent the intrusion of amateurs, no matter how well-meaning.
Pretty soon Laura finds herself in the world of professional rodeo behind the arena; delving into the murky underworld of the pot hunters who exploit culture for cash-and there is big money in pottery and other artifacts. There is the high-tech reality of cyberspace existing side-by-side with an ancient, pastoral culture of nature and magic.
David Cole has done a remarkable job in juggling all of these disparate themes and threads, and he builds up an impressive cast of characters before he is done. There is the junkyard owner, shadetree mechanic Claude, who watches over Laura. There is the aging Indian activist and biker dude Kimo Biakeddy who takes up her cause when he loses his marginal job at the local gas-n-go. Mix in a Native American woman who has made a fortune in fake and illegal Indian artifacts, an alcoholic Navajo school psychologist, various rodeo hangers-on, bounty hunters, and a serial killer and you have a pretty potent mix.
The grand finale of the tale-if only partial solution of the mystery-isn't all I hoped for, but involves a process that seems to give Laura back her life and reconnect her to other human beings with shared experience. Maybe reconciling ourselves with the weird world we live in is as good as it gets. Butterfly Lost delivers a solid and satisfying performance.
Click here to purchase a
signed copy of David Cole's Butterfly Lost. ($8.00)
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