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A review by goodthingsread
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King
challenging
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
4.0
I have mixed feelings on this book, though I did enjoy it. The heavy sarcasm that is liberally used throughout the book is entertaining at first. I get it, too; the history of indigenous peoples in North America in relation to whites/Canada/the USA is horrific and depressing and you need to use what methods you can to get through it. But by halfway through the seventh chapter (in a ten chapter book), I felt very much like the saltiness had run its course. I would much rather have had a more even mix of tongue-in-cheek dark humor with genuine dark history.
I had seen that the author was a professor (at one time) and with that in mind, the book reads more as a collection of lectures that were cleaned up and edited to work together as a narrative. I don't know if this is true or not, but the parts of the book that I didn't like would be explained by this theory. I started to grow tired with King's sarcasm when he decided to be condescending towards other Natives/tribes with regard to gambling. (He would much rather have given $15 charitably towards a clinic rather than the slot machine, but apparently he was forced into supporting this tribe through the casino.) Then, two chapters later, he speaks on how impressed he was that tribes with casinos had been using their profits to not only improve the reservations and buy stocks, but also to buy land and add that back into the tribes' trusts. It felt like one chapter had been written ten years before the latter.
My main complaint however was that by the end, what with the continual sarcasm and pessimistic read of history, I didn't feel any of the hope the book blurb tells me is here. In the final chapter, King says he wants to end on a hopeful note, so he asked some of his native friends for hopeful examples in the recent history of indigenous people in North America. But then, as he covers those examples, he finds the negatives in them and basically says that as great as these examples look, they will undoubtedly end poorly. ("The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act is bad, actually, because this Canadian jurist has an authoritative view on American law and I personally don't see how it will work in the future.") He doesn't offer any solutions, suggestions, or better courses of action, not for native peoples or for white allies. It's just: "The government(s) will screw you. Don't trust them. Good luck but that won't help you."
I liked the book for the information and the view point, and it is well-written. But I can't say that I would recommend it without warning.
Also, I listened to the audiobook and Lorne Cardinal is an excellent narrator for the book.
I had seen that the author was a professor (at one time) and with that in mind, the book reads more as a collection of lectures that were cleaned up and edited to work together as a narrative. I don't know if this is true or not, but the parts of the book that I didn't like would be explained by this theory. I started to grow tired with King's sarcasm when he decided to be condescending towards other Natives/tribes with regard to gambling. (He would much rather have given $15 charitably towards a clinic rather than the slot machine, but apparently he was forced into supporting this tribe through the casino.) Then, two chapters later, he speaks on how impressed he was that tribes with casinos had been using their profits to not only improve the reservations and buy stocks, but also to buy land and add that back into the tribes' trusts. It felt like one chapter had been written ten years before the latter.
My main complaint however was that by the end, what with the continual sarcasm and pessimistic read of history, I didn't feel any of the hope the book blurb tells me is here. In the final chapter, King says he wants to end on a hopeful note, so he asked some of his native friends for hopeful examples in the recent history of indigenous people in North America. But then, as he covers those examples, he finds the negatives in them and basically says that as great as these examples look, they will undoubtedly end poorly. ("The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act is bad, actually, because this Canadian jurist has an authoritative view on American law and I personally don't see how it will work in the future.") He doesn't offer any solutions, suggestions, or better courses of action, not for native peoples or for white allies. It's just: "The government(s) will screw you. Don't trust them. Good luck but that won't help you."
I liked the book for the information and the view point, and it is well-written. But I can't say that I would recommend it without warning.
Also, I listened to the audiobook and Lorne Cardinal is an excellent narrator for the book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism