In Deborah Jackson Taffa’s memoir “Whiskey Tender,” which is a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award, the author recounts how she found the so-called American Dream not by giving up her own culture, as her ancestors had been forced to, but by reclaiming it. Taffa is a citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo.
She earned her MFA at the University of Iowa and is the director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
BOOKS: What are you reading?
TAFFA: A book to blurb, “This Music: A Poetic Memoir.” It’s a very elliptical collection by Janice Gould, a Native poet from California. She is not well known, but she was very influential in the Native poetry world. Her work doesn’t lean on the typical stereotypes that you see in indigenous fiction. That’s one of my problems with a lot of Native fiction. We rarely have middle-class narratives.
BOOKS: Who are the writers you turn to for that kind of writing?
TAFFA: Louise Erdrich has done some of that. She came into the publishing world during the Native American Literary Renaissance, which started in the ‘70s with writers like Leslie Marmon Silko and N. Scott Momaday. Then there was this really quiet time in the publishing world with native writers. They had Sherman Alexie, and they were happy with him. Then a second wave started.
BOOKS: Who are some of the writers in that second wave you’ve been reading?
TAFFA: Ramona Emerson is dealing with modern-day issues that you see on the ground in Albuquerque. That’s exciting. She writes whodunnits about a forensic photographer in Albuquerque who hears dead people’s voices. Her first book was “Shutter” and her second, “Exposure,” just came out. I’m in the middle of “The Man Who Could Move Clouds” by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, which was an NBA finalist. She chronicles a lineage of medicine people in her family. I’m thrilled to see more books like that. For a long time, nonfiction was taboo in Native literature. We didn’t talk about our culture or spiritual practices openly. There were many reasons for that, but we need to become more influential and less worried about appropriation.
BOOKS: How much of your reading is for work?
TAFFA: A lot. I really only read for pleasure in the summer. This summer I read “The Listeners,” by Canadian author Jordan Tanahill. It’s an incredible story about these people who can hear a low hum that nobody else can. People are frightened by them. The way the book resolves is fascinating.
BOOKS: What else do you read?
TAFFA: I have an affinity for children’s literature because I read my children a ton of books, and I used to review young adult indigenous books for Kirkus. The books coming out of Alaska are so beautiful, such as Aviaq Johnson’s “Those Who Run in the Sky.”
BOOKS: How did you become a devoted reader?
TAFFA: I started reading before I started school. I grew up in Yuma in the desert. We didn’t have AC so we’d go to the library around 10 a.m. every day. My mother read novels in the adult section, and my sister and I would lay between the stacks and read. We’d go home when it began to cool off outside. I was lucky I grew up in Indian country because it was not as difficult to find books by Native writers as it was in other places.
BOOKS: Do you still use libraries?
TAFFA: I absolutely do. I’m over at the [Institute of American Indian Arts’] library twice a week. In fact, I have an overdue book sitting in my living room, Melissa Febos’s nonfiction book “Girlhood.” I’m reluctant to bring it back because I marked some pages to transcribe. One time, back in the ‘80s, I admit I kept a library book, the “Pueblo Indian Cookbook” by Phyllis Hughes. You couldn’t find it anywhere to buy. I pretended that I lost the book and paid to replace it. I still cook from it. The pumpkin piñon soup recipe is yummy. Of course, now you can easily get it online.
Follow us on Facebook or Twitter @GlobeBiblio. Amy Sutherland is the author, most recently, of “Rescuing Penny Jane” and can be reached at [email protected].
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