Nora PierceBesprekingen

I read this book while traveling and was pleased to have it. It held my interst and was a fine read.

My reaction in the end however is somewhat mixed. I was distracted by the similarities between this book and White Oleander and while they certainly deal with topics that deserve to be looked at often and from many angles, I still spent more time being reminded of the other book instead of simply taking in the story.

The other thing--and I hope this isn't a spoiler--is that the "take home message" was a bit muddled. On the face of it, it seems that basically Native American children--especially those from homes dealing with alcoholism and mental illness--have no hope and frankly white people who want to help just shouldn't try because even a good faith effort isn't going to be good enough. (In fact while Alice runs into cluelessness and prejudice after she goes into foster care with the new school and her foster family's extended family, the family itself is clearly trying to do what's best and accepts Alice for who and what she is.

I read this book while traveling and was pleased to have it. It held my interst and was a fine read.

My reaction in the end however is somewhat mixed. I was distracted by the similarities between this book and White Oleander and while they certainly deal with topics that deserve to be looked at often and from many angles, I still spent more time being reminded of the other book instead of simply taking in the story.

The other thing--and I hope this isn't a spoiler--is that the "take home message" was a bit muddled. On the face of it, it seems that basically Native American children--especially those from homes dealing with alcoholism and mental illness--have no hope and frankly white people who want to help just shouldn't try because even a good faith effort isn't going to be good enough. (In fact while Alice runs into cluelessness and prejudice after she goes into foster care with the new school and her foster family's extended family, the family itself is clearly trying to do what's best and accepts Alice for who and what she is.

I read this book while traveling and was pleased to have it. It held my interst and was a fine read.

My reaction in the end however is somewhat mixed. I was distracted by the similarities between this book and White Oleander and while they certainly deal with topics that deserve to be looked at often and from many angles, I still spent more time being reminded of the other book instead of simply taking in the story.

The other thing--and I hope this isn't a spoiler--is that the "take home message" was a bit muddled. On the face of it, it seems that basically Native American children--especially those from homes dealing with alcoholism and mental illness--have no hope and frankly white people who want to help just shouldn't try because even a good faith effort isn't going to be good enough. (In fact while Alice runs into cluelessness and prejudice after she goes into foster care with the new school and her foster family's extended family, the family itself is clearly trying to do what's best and accepts Alice for who and what she is.

I must agree with the review of MsBaba below. I was intrigued and spell-bound by the child's perspective of poverty, malnutrition, neglect, and alienation from mainstream culture in the first parts of the book. However, when she became part of the foster care system, Alice's "voice" lost something. The latter story line didn't ring true or authentic somehow. Nonetheless, I applaud Pierce for this look at the Native American subculture and its effect on children of alcoholics or the mentally ill.

Pierce's finesse in relaying the landscape of a child's life through the delicate filter of her young perspective is brilliant. It's terribly challenging to write a child's first person point of view in an adult work, and Pierce accomplishes it masterfully. Through this naive lens the author gives tremendous insight into cultural wealth and poverty, mental illness and the soaring imagination inextricably tied to it, as well as the emotional hurdles of a child displaced by virtually everyone. What stability little Alice lacks in family and tribe Pierce returns to her tenfold with a compassionate and responsive audience.

The Insufficiency of Maps by Nora Pierce is a compelling but flawed story concerning an endearing, imaginative, and confused child struggling against adversity. The story begins with Alice, a five-year old Native American girl telling us about the bus trip she is taking with her mother. They are taking an exhausting, exciting journey so her mother can be married. They end up in an impoverished Indian reservation in Arizona where Alice is introduced to a man who may be her “Papi.”

The next two-thirds of the book covers a few short months in the child’s life. The reader learns everything through the quiet, all-observing, eyes-wide-open voice of vulnerable little five-year old Alice. We can’t help but fall in love with this child! Through the child’s inexperienced young voice, the reader is able to recognize what the child cannot. While she gets to know her Papi, plays around his dilapidated trailer, makes friends, goes to school, and later goes with her mother to live with her grandfather in Los Angeles, we are consumed by fear. We cannot put this book down, so fearful are we for the young child at every turn. We see Alice exposed to poverty, endangered by malnutrition, and victimized by neglect. Her caregivers are absent, alcoholic, or mentally or physically ill. They all love her, but are incapable of fulfilling her most basic needs. It is heart-wrenching and utterly compelling.

In the last third of the book, Alice becomes orphaned, and is taken into the foster care system. She begins living with a family in the white suburbs of Los Angeles. Alice seems lost in this completely alien culture. Trying to find her way, she becomes obsessed with maps.

In a succession of brief chapters, Alice grows up. During this period, we see Alice only through quick glimpses—a series of sketches, nothing full enough to reimagine clearly how the child is changing. All too quickly we are at the end of the novel. Alice is suddenly 14, and she is finally able to put some important thing in perspective and take matters into her own hands. The novel ends with an unexpected and satisfying coming-of-age experience that puts Alice squarely on the path toward self-realization.

Pierce’s prose is elegant, literary, spare, and lyrical. The dialogue is excellent. Overall, I was pleased and impressed. In particular, the author successfully transports the reader into life on a modern-day Indian reservation, and exposes us clearly to the disabling upheaval of foster care. I look forward to reading more by this talented author; however, I have mixed feelings for this work as a whole. For the first two thirds I was absolutely enthralled; I could not stop reading; I was completely captivated and compelled. But at the point where Alice is transferred into foster care, the book abruptly changes pace and voice. Alice seems to have the very life drained from her. As a reader, I could no longer imagine Alice or believe in her as a middle-schooler, preteen, or adolescent. Thus the overall three-star rating on a book that might easily have earned five stars.

Very enjoyable story. Its told from the view point of Alice starting at age 5 until the age of 14. The story follows the life of Alice as her mother suffers from mental illness and comes to killing her. Then the years spent in the foster care system. Excellent first novel for Ms. Pierce.