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Content snapshot
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Violence
Some
WWII violence depicted in trauma and flashback; some violence in the present-day narrative
Language
Barely any
Mild language
Sexual Content
Some
Adult sexual content including some explicit passages
Substance Use
A lot
Heavy drinking and alcoholism are central to the lives of the veterans in the novel
Emotional Intensity
A lot
PTSD, cultural trauma, and the fragmentation of identity after war and dispossession drive the novel's psychological intensity
What this book is about
Leslie Marmon Silko's debut novel follows Tayo, a mixed-heritage Laguna Pueblo man who returns from WWII with severe PTSD, and his slow healing through traditional ceremony and the stories of his people. Silko weaves Laguna oral tradition into the novel's structure; the ceremony and the healing are inseparable from the form. Heavy drinking and alcoholism among veterans is central to the novel. Sexual content is adult and present. The psychological weight of cultural dispossession and war trauma is the novel's full subject.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Heavy drinking and alcoholism throughout
PTSD and war trauma depicted with intensity
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