Geronimo's Bones

Book excerpt: Nasdijj was born in 1950s America to migrant parents-a white cowboy father and a tenderhearted Navajo mother. Surviving the brutal conditions of migrant camps in Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, and North Carolina, Nasdijj and his little brother, Tso, raced trains and found sanctuary in Navajo stories they had heard at bedtime, whispered tales about Spider Woman, Sa, Geronimo, and Coyote. After their mother's tragic death from alcohol, the young brothers were left in the care of their sometimes indifferent, often abusive, occasionally loving father. Rarely in school, the boys picked cotton, tomatoes, potatoes, apples, peaches, beans, and artichokes. Eventually, to escape this indentured servitude, Nasdijj and Tso stole a car and ran away. Told in brilliant flashes of poetry, narrative, and song, Geronimo's Bones reveals a world that to this day remains hidden from most Americans. But Nasdijj's work derives its special power from his ability to capture the universal emotions that we all share: hate and love, loss and remembrance. Book jacket.