Even As We Breathe

Starred review from July 20, 2020
Clapsaddle’s lush debut thrusts 19-year-old Cowney Sequoyah into WWII intrigue. In 1942, Cowney leaves his home on the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina for a groundskeeping job at Asheville’s Grove Park Inn and Resort, which is being used by the government to intern enemy diplomats and their families. On the grounds, he uncovers a mysterious, human-looking bone, which he shows only to fellow Cherokee Essie Stomper, whom he falls for. Essie doesn’t share Cowney’s feelings, however, and embarks on a forbidden affair with Andrea, an Italian “guest.” Meanwhile, Cowney keeps quiet with his family about his doubts over the sketchy details shared with him about his father’s death by the Germans following Armistice Day. After a diplomat’s young child goes missing, and Essie, sure Cowney told their boss about her relationship with Andrea, tells the soldiers guarding the resort about the bone Cowney has been holding onto. A colonel confiscates the bone, which he takes to be a sign of Cowney’s evil nature and casts him under suspicion (“I know you people do all kinds of godforsaken things”). The clear, crisp prose hums consistently as the intricate story easily moves along and new details about Cowney’s family’s past emerge. Both an astonishing addition to WWII and Native American literature, this novel sings on every level.

Starred review from November 1, 2020

Gr 9 Up-It is 1942 and 19-year-old Cowney is adrift. He can't enlist in the army due to a physical disability, he left junior college and hasn't decided whether he's going back, and he feels out of place at home on the Qualla Boundary and outside the reservation where racism runs rampant. Needing money for tuition, and wanting to prove himself useful to the war effort, Cowney takes a groundskeeper position at the Grove Park Inn. Although they are still referred to as "guests," the residents of the Inn are not tourists or vacationers, they are diplomats and other high-class POWs. Working at the Inn throws issues of class, race, and ableism into stark relief for Cowney, whose introspective nature lends itself to observation and insight into the world around him. Tragedies strike fast and thick throughout the summer, and when a child goes missing, suspicion falls on Cowney. A tangled and intricate plot unrolls with exquisite slowness, and Clapsaddle portrays the smoke-filled forests of Cowney's home with stunning sensory detail; things that were once familiar take on a newly sinister cast in the haze. Clapsaddle's debut is a lyrical and moving period piece that is both evocative of the WWII home front and resonant with today. The novel takes on familiar coming-of-age tropes and adds an incisive #OwnVoices edge. VERDICT This is the first novel published by an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), and Clapsaddle adds a vivid voice to the fiction of Appalachia. A first purchase for all high school and public libraries.-Heather Waddell, Sargent Memorial Lib., Boxborough, MA

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.