Chris Stark’s new novel Carnival Lights offers a wild ride unlike any other in the history of Native American literature. Set in 1969, it plays fast and loose with time, continually juxtaposing the present with the past, fulfilling William Faulkner’s statement that “The past is never dead; it’s not even past.” The two main characters, teenage cousins ​​Sher and Kris, exist in a world where everything is a reminder of tragedy, but also of family, love, and the cultural teachings of their Ojibwa heritage in their native Minnesota. As they try to run from the past and create a new future for themselves without any preparation for the real world, they find threats surrounding them on all sides. Even the dazzling carnival lights at the Minnesota State Fair are unpromising, though they are drawn to them like moths to a flame.

While Sher and Kris’s story is a fairly straightforward narrative about leaving home, because Kris is abused by her father and struggles to make a living working at the fair, while trying to avoid the many dangers that surround them, mainly from white men. Layer upon layer of history, meaning and pain is added to your story. Throughout the novel, we meet many of the girls’ relatives, some living, some long dead, and learn their stories, stories aptly told in Sher’s memory, but laced with images from the popular culture of the American natives:

“She would listen to the stories about her family. Her people. Dying of disease and starvation in the 19th century until only a handful survived deep in the jungle, and the other handful disappeared into TVs and food boxes in villages. of the surroundings, mingling with whites until the only way you knew they were Indians was through facial features that appeared white at first glance, but upon closer examination the eyes, cheeks, and foreheads appeared stretched and angled in ways that made them appear as if they were in a state of discomfort from never belonging anywhere.”

And within the stories of the Sher people, within the Carnival Lights stories, the whole story of Minnesota is told, and the story of White American relations with Native Americans, and a distorted sense of history, and A new perspective on Native Americans. could ever consider. Author Chris Stark drops native perspective bombs in subtle ways throughout the novel. Set in the summer of 1969, the moon landing provides a perfect opportunity to drop such a bomb when Sher and Kris’s grandmother expresses her disbelief in the moon landing: “Yeah, sure. They’re on the moon now planting their flag. White la People say anything and take everything. Other bombs are historical facts that the reader may not know about, including Indian babies being sold to white couples in the Great Lakes, babies who will grow up not knowing for years that they are Indian. And L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, advocating in the newspapers read in Minnesota for the final destruction of the Native Americans.

And then there are the literal bombs, or at least the rockets. Stark layers in all sorts of little-known details about American history, waking her from her slumber to discover the ugliness that lies beneath so much of her. Among those ugly truths are the rockets on display at the Minnesota State Fair, rockets worked on by Nazi scientists that the United States saved to do its own bidding. Nazi scientists who helped bring about the US conquest of the moon.

And while 1969 may seem like history to readers, Stark’s depiction of the Vietnam War protests in Minneapolis, including police attacks on protesters, sends shockwaves back to the present with reminders of the recent Minneapolis riots a following the death of George Floyd. What kind of carnival is this that Stark offers his readers? It’s more funhouse than fun, with a distorted story to watch at every turn, every time we look in the mirror of the past, we only have Stark to help us refocus on the truth reflected in that image.

The white facade of white America is continually seen as dirty or dirty, like a false facade, as we see Native Americans, Blacks, Jews, Germans trying to escape the horrors of World War II, and homosexuals and two-spirited individuals. , all turning the pages of the novel, each trying to find their place in a crucible that can’t assimilate them because it refuses to accept what it sees as their imperfections.

Examples of failed assimilation are peppered throughout the novel. In one passage, we are told that during the worst winters Sher’s family would give away the last of her stock to other families, both Indian and white:

“That very thing, generosity, which the government had hoped to cure by stealing Indian lives, customs, and lands and then giving the surviving Indians tar paper huts, farms, and the white man’s religion. How many memos generated: the Indian in his simplicity will give away the last of his clothes, food and feather trinkets that seem to have great value to him without thinking about how he will survive. This can be cured by showing him the property so that the Indian can also become civilized. in the ways of the white man.”

On their journey, Sher and Kris meet Jacob, a young gay Jewish man who dreams of being Ginger Rogers, who dreams of finding his own Fred Astaire to sing to, dance with, and spin in “A Place Where Boys Loved Boys.” guys”. , a place where he wasn’t the only one.” However, Jacob has to assimilate and try to survive as well.

At one point, Sher concludes, “It seemed like every time they turned around, there was another white man trying to hurt them.” And when the characters in the novel are wounded, a new wound opens up old wounds, reflecting generations of pain. When a character hears shocking news, we’re told, “Em’s grief flared and burned deep, trapping the pain of slain and gone ancestors she’d never known, creating a fire as big as a forest in the young Indian woman’s blood.” “.

Carnival Lights is a powerful, lyrical and epic testimonial to the history of the Ojibwe in Minnesota and all Native Americans. It’s the northern equivalent of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. It’s a nightmare that sneaks up behind the glow of the midway. It is an awakening for anyone who dares to lift the veil of the past to find the truth that festers beneath. Because only when that truth is known can healing begin. It’s too late for Chris Stark’s characters to break through, but through the illumination the novel offers, it may not be too late for the rest of us.