1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhóta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn't return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato—where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they've inherited.
On a winter's day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband's farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron—women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools.
Weaving together the voices of four indelible women, The Seed Keeper is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original relationship to the seeds and, through them, to our ancestors.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 23, 2021 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781571317322
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781571317322
- File size: 2602 KB
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Accessibility
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Ways Of Reading
No information about appearance modifiability is available.
Not all of the content will be readable as read aloud speech or dynamic braille.
Conformance
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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The story of a bold, strong Dakhóta woman named Rosalie Iron Wing unfolds in captivating ways in Diane Wilson’s The Seed Keeper. As much as this is Rosalie’s story—of her past, her separation from her family and her marriage to a white man—it is also the story of seeds, land and connection to a place. Told in a range of women’s voices, The Seed Keeper spans from the recent death of Rosalie’s spouse back to her childhood in the foster care system, then goes even further back to reveal the stories of her ancestors and the land they called home. The women in Rosalie’s family and family-by-choice are fascinating, and each offers her own perspective on both the story and the setting in which it unfolds, adding depth to our understanding of Rosalie and the complexities of her character. It’s a rich tale of trauma and choice, history and meaning-making. But while this story is about the legacy of Dakhóta women, it’s also about white settlers and the ways that Western ideas and farming tactics have impacted rivers, soil and the lives of people and animals. The contrast between how white colonizers use the land and Native Americans care for it viscerally demonstrates the inextricable connection between the earth and the people who love it. When the Dakhóta people were forced to cede their land, the women took seeds with them, and those seeds now form a connective thread of memory and ancestry between generations. Wilson’s memoir about her life as a Dakhóta woman, Spirit Car, won a Minnesota Book Award. In her first novel, the writing sings in compact, careful sentences, lending a timelessness to the narrative and making it clear that this compelling story is not just about these characters but also about culture, landscape and how we can—and often cannot—understand each other. Haunting and beautiful, the seeds and words of this novel will find their way into your world, however far from the Dakhóta lands that might be.
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