Our book discussion for Wednesday, January 21 will be A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power
Synopsis:
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
The long-awaited, profoundly moving, and unforgettable new novel from PEN Award–winning Native American author Mona Susan Power, spanning three generations of Yanktonai Dakota women from the 19th century to the present day.
From the mid-century metropolis of Chicago to the windswept ancestral lands of the Dakota people, to the bleak and brutal Indian boarding schools, A Council of Dolls is the story of three women, told in part through the stories of the dolls they carried….
Sissy, born 1961: Sissy’s relationship with her beautiful and volatile mother is difficult, even dangerous, but her life is also filled with beautiful things, including a new Christmas present, a doll called Ethel. Ethel whispers advice and kindness in Sissy’s ear, and in one especially terrifying moment, maybe even saves Sissy’s life.
Lillian, born 1925: Born in her ancestral lands in a time of terrible change,Lillianclings to her sister, Blanche, and her doll, Mae. When the sisters are forced to attend an “Indian school” far from their home, Blanche refuses to be cowed by the school’s abusive nuns. But when tragedy strikes the sisters, the doll Mae finds her way to defend the girls.
Cora, born 1888: Though she was born into the brutal legacy of the “Indian Wars,” Cora isn’t afraid of the white men who remove her to a school across the country to be “civilized.” When teachers burn her beloved buckskin and beaded doll Winona, Cora discovers that the spirit of Winona may not be entirely lost…
A modern masterpiece, A Council of Dolls is gorgeous, quietly devastating, and ultimately hopeful, shining a light on the echoing damage wrought by Indian boarding schools, and the historical massacres of Indigenous people. With stunning prose, Mona Susan Power weaves a spell of love and healing that comes alive on the page.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers
1. Sissy’s dad says of her beautiful but violent mother: “Your mama is great at fighting for us, fighting for our community. Sometimes people take their anger and use it in a good way.” How does Sissy’s mama channel her rage in a positive way? Does it compensate for the damage her anger does otherwise?
2. What role does Ethel the doll play in Sissy’s life? In the final climactic scene of Sissy’s narrative, she hears Ethel say “I took care of it. Somebody had to.” How did you interpret that? Do we gain any additional insight at the end of the book, when we hear Ethel explain her own version of events?
3. As you learned more about Jack’s and Lillian’s childhoods, did that change your understanding of who they became as adults? Did you feel differently about them when you saw them as children versus how you saw them as parents?
4. Blanche asks their father, Jack, why he speaks English with her and Lillian, even though he hates it. He tells her: “Cora and I got into the practice once you started school, because you didn’t understand us so well anymore. We know firsthand how that works, how you’re punished for speaking our language. The constant policing of our ways and our words interrupts the ability to think fluently. Our thoughts get chopped up. We don’t want that to happen to you.” Was this the right decision? How might things have been different for his children if they had been raised speaking only Dakhóta?
5. Jack tells his daughters: “Maybe English is safer to me because it doesn’t mean anything, because its words are empty to me. No heart. Sometimes when you lose a lot, you have to put your heart away to keep it ticking.” Does this ring true to you? Do you know people who have experienced similar losses—of language, of culture, of community?
6. Had you heard about America’s Indian boarding schools before you read this book? What new information or perspective did you gain while reading stories of children who were forced to attend them?
7. At the Indian boarding school, Cornelius tells his friends that at the back of a closet “a cold rush of air brushed our faces and the light clicked on again. Then off. We heard crying from the darkest corner way in the back.” He found scratched on the closet walls the words “HELP HOME HELP HOME HELP HOME.” How did you interpret that experience? What do the children make of it?
8. Why does Lillian feel obligated to give Mae the doll to her dying friend Ada? How did you interpret Mae’s return into Lillian’s life even after she was buried with Ada? Is Mae now a ghost? A figment of Lillian’s imagination? A manifestation of her trauma?
9. Winona, Cora’s doll, tells her, “Everything I see is colored by my eyes. When they were sewn of dyed black porcupine quills, the world was dark, and now that they are indigo glass beads the vision is clear but always twilight. We don’t see the truth. But our heart feels it if we listen.” How does this square with what Cora’s mother tells her: “I just want you to know that what strangers make of you means nothing. Your heart knows the truth”? What ultimately becomes of Winona’s heart?
10. In the final section of the novel we meet Jesse, in the present day. Why is she compelled to reunite the dolls that we have seen throughout the story, carried by her forebears? How did you, the reader, feel as you witnessed each of the dolls reap pear in Jesse’s apartment?
11. Who are the three women who appear to Jesse at the end of this story? Why are they there? Why have they arrived now rather than earlier? How will that experience inform Jesse’s life as she moves forward?
12. Author Mona Susan Power based this novel on aspects of her own family’s experiences with Indian boarding schools. She wrote: “The creation of this novel was both emotionally intense and liberating, and also educational. I was able to see how generational trauma works, how pain and dysfunction echo in a never-ending cycle of various kinds of abuse until someone finally heals.” What form does the healing take in this novel? How do we know that it’s happened? Have you seen examples of this kind of healing from trauma in your own life?