ALL I SEE IS VIOLENCE, a novel whose title is evocative and accurate and deeply sad

ALL I SEE IS VIOLENCE
ANGIE ELITA NEWELL
Greenleaf Book Group Press
$27.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A woman warrior, a ruthless general, and a single mother―three stories deftly braided into the legacy of a stolen nation

The US government stole the Black Hills from the Sioux, as it stole land from every tribe across North America. Forcibly relocated, American Indians were enslaved under strict land and resource regulations. Indigenous writer Angie Elita Newell brings a poignant retelling of the catastrophic, true story of the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn and the social upheaval that occurred on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1972 during the height of the American Indian Movement.

Cheyenne warrior Little Wolf fights to maintain her people’s land and heritage as General Custer leads a devastating campaign against American Indians, killing anyone who refuses to relocate to the Red Cloud Agency in South Dakota. A century later, on that same reservation, Little Wolf’s relation Nancy Swiftfox raises four boys with the help of her father-in-law, while facing the economic and social ramifications of this violent legacy.

All I See Is Violence weaves love, loss, and hard truths into a story that needs to be told―a journey through violence to bear witness to all that was taken, to honor what all of our ancestors lived through, and to heal by acknowledging the shadows in order to find the light.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Alternating PoV narratives are hard to pull off. A balancing act among three voices is even harder. What Author Newell sought to do, it seems to me, was done by giving the reader all the points of view that shore up her point: Fight for or against something, whichver you like, and you will still end up reinforcing the violence and the rage our world is swimming in. She does this best by presenting each character's story to us in the same first-person present tense.

To be sure, her Indigenous people's points of view are clearly presented as they are, the victims of an aggressive colonial project that requires them to die. The truth here is that women are not passive victims of this project, but use every tool available at the time they exist to fight against the dual prongs of racism and sexism.

Custer's PoV is, at first, an odd choice given the theme of the book. His perpetration of violence against Indigenous people did nor give me any clues about why he was included...until his (much shorter) sections led me to see that the story was about the violence committed, not about victimhood. Custer was part of an Imperial project, and a believer in it...through cluelessness, sociopathy, or an Eichmannesque just-following-orders soldier's ethos is an open question.

I landed on a four-star rating because I was not entirely convinced by the narrative inclusion of Custer...it jars with my expectations, and more to the point it is not prefigured or required in Little Wolf's contemporaneous narrative parts...and because I very much wanted more of Nancy Littlefox's family relationships. These lacunae were not fatal to my enjoyment of the read, obviously, but noticeably lessened my smooth sailing through it.

Cavils, really, concerning a read I was drawn to, and held within, for several pleasurable hours.