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A review by gitli57
Buffalo is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel
adventurous
informative
3.5
This is a collection of eight stories that began life as a Master's Thesis. Perhaps not surprisingly, the writing is sometimes undermined by the self-aware posturing and performative validating necessary to get the project past an academic committee.
I have to question the choice to include extensive footnotes in the body of the stories and explanatory essays after each story. While they are sometimes informative, they are at best a distraction for the reading experience and sometimes border on the condescending. There is no doubt that the writer is ready for their committee defense...
Take away the academic self-justification and you are left with eight interesting, at times compelling speculative stories from a talented, young post-colonial Indigenous writer. Vowel is an agenda driven writer and secondary characters are sometimes two-dimensional targets, plot points sometimes feel forced and dialogue sometimes clunks as characters are reduced to being mouthpieces for the author's "teaching points".
Vowel has the potential to become a really fine writer of fiction. She also has the potential to become tediously academic. I will hope for the former because we really need more great young Indig writers doing this kind of work.
Full disclosure - I am Indig, though from a different culture than the author. I totally vibe with most of her world view and her political stance. But please, just tell me your stories. I'd be happy to read your footnotes and essays afterwards.
I have to question the choice to include extensive footnotes in the body of the stories and explanatory essays after each story. While they are sometimes informative, they are at best a distraction for the reading experience and sometimes border on the condescending. There is no doubt that the writer is ready for their committee defense...
Take away the academic self-justification and you are left with eight interesting, at times compelling speculative stories from a talented, young post-colonial Indigenous writer. Vowel is an agenda driven writer and secondary characters are sometimes two-dimensional targets, plot points sometimes feel forced and dialogue sometimes clunks as characters are reduced to being mouthpieces for the author's "teaching points".
Vowel has the potential to become a really fine writer of fiction. She also has the potential to become tediously academic. I will hope for the former because we really need more great young Indig writers doing this kind of work.
Full disclosure - I am Indig, though from a different culture than the author. I totally vibe with most of her world view and her political stance. But please, just tell me your stories. I'd be happy to read your footnotes and essays afterwards.