The Woman Who Watches Over the World

""I sat down to write a book about pain and ended up writing about love," says award-winning Chicksaw poet and novelist Linda Hogan. In The Woman Who Watches Over the World, she recounts her American Indian identity, her difficult childhood as the daughter of an army sergeant, her love affair at the age of twelve with an older man, the legacy of alcoholism, and the troubled history of the two daughters she adopted. She reveals how historic and emotional pain are passed down through generations, and she blends personal history with stories of important Indian figures of the past such as Lozen, the woman who was the military strategist for Geronimo, and Ohiyesha, the Santee Sioux medical doctor who witnessed the massacre at Wounded Knee. Ultimately, Hogan sees herself and her people whole again, and in doing so gives us an illuminating story of personal and spiritual triumph."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.