Perma Red

Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling

 This book will leave you unsettled but enamored with the prose and mysticism throughout.

Plot
Debra Magpie Earling takes us back to a Montana reservation in the 1940’s where Louise White Elk lives with her sister and her grandmother. This is her coming-of-age story during a time when native children faced harsh conditions both in forced boarding schools and in the outside world.  

Substance and themes
In the novel, Louise is sixteen. When I think of these teenage years, I think about the way a body of freshwater gives way to an ocean. Is it universal that women have to learn much too early that society and men will try and lay claim to a perceived womanhood before you even have a chance yourself? I think this is why Earling’s portrayal of girlhood feels so real and devastating.

Louise is still a child, yet learning that her body and beauty has become an object for the desires of others and therefore a tool. A tool for her to escape but an escape that ends in violence nonetheless.

 The exploration of girlhood felt real and urgent. There are  many explorations in this novel -  class, colorism, racism, the history of forced education/assimilation of indigenous children, many of which, we know now, did not survive.

This is a moving story but not a feel good story. The prose are beautiful and mystic. There is abject poverty. There is exploration of how authority given by an oppressor requires betrayal of self. How all the lives in this book are shaped by the endurance required to survive this time and place.

Structure

The story oscillates between the perspectives of Charlie Kicking Woman, Louise, and Baptiste Yellow Knife – all centered on their relationship to Louise and Louise’s relationship to the men that want something from her.

I agree with some of the reviews that Louise is wild, savvy, tough, impulsive but we don’t get a ton of depth. Perhaps it is meant to be that way to communicate that this is not just the story of one girl but a story of girlhood at that time and in that place.  

SOFT COVER Take:

The beautiful prose in the book contrasts with the brutal reality it describes. This book will leave you unsettled but is the kind of fiction that tells the truth.

Note, this was part of a read for the Milkweed Editions book club that is free and runs every month. As part of the book club we learned interesting facts about how the publishers wanted the books ending to omit (and if you read this, you’ll see why Earling made certain choices) and that in 2022 this book was banned from the Montana public schools. Thank you to Milkweed Editions for this pick!