I Walk in Two Worlds

It was my mother's past that pressed me to read this account of life as an Indian woman.
Eleanor Brass grew up on the same reserve in Saskatchewan as my mother.

I read this right after a Tolstoy novel. I found it initially a cultural and literary shock.
Although her writing is simple and grammatically limited, there is a relevant similarity with
Tolstoy. He was a rarity as a writer because there was no other Russian author who wrote
from within the aristocracy. Eleanor is an equal rarity. The native education of that generation
was so poor that few writers emerged. Eleanor Brass writes from a unique perspective.

Her viewpoint offered me a trip back to an oddly familiar encampment-to the cruelty of
the residential school, to the prejudices and tauntings of the white children and to the strength
of a native woman.

I wish I would've listened to my mother as she told her own stories. I was too young
then, but I am listening now.