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So. I've known my book, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, was going to be getting a review in the NYT for over a month now. And this morning it came out, so I paid so I could read it from behind the paywall. I was hoping that the reviewer would see what I was doing with my book.
My stomach dropped as soon as I read the title of the review: "The Harsh Realities of Being Indigenous." I immediately was afraid the reviewer looked at my work as trauma porn designed to make non-Indigenous folks feel pity for me. That is NOT my goal. But sure enough:
I absolutely did NOT make a map of Native brokenness. I wrote about my own experiences and the ways that the unconditional love of my parents and my community delivered me whole and unafraid into this world where I now have to speak up against a misguided NYT review.
This is the problem with reviews: people who are paid for their supposed expertise in reading are given carte blanche to misinterpret however they please. For example, the reviewer said my book is a memoir. It isn't. It's a book of essays. I specifically chose that as an artist.
What's worse, this reviewer not only mislabeled my book, they also used a trip to a museum to determine that I didn't write enough about my people's wampum and treaties! I didn't realize that was what I was supposed to be doing in my book was give the entire history of my people.
Most disappointing, though: there isn't a single mention of my use of form, my careful craft, the innovative ways I engaged with the essay form, the ways I brought in pop cultural elements as disparate as Vanderpump Rules, Kanye West, Britney Spears, BLM, Halloween, dark matter..
I know it's not considered good form for authors to speak back to reviews. But Haudenosaunee women don't sit down and take disrespect. We speak back. So no, I'm not going to fake gratefulness for a review that completely misrepresented my work and assumed authorial intention.
I did that before. A white male reviewer in Canada published a misrepresentation of my father's history. He never checked with me, then when I told him to change it, he pressured my publisher until ***I*** had to change a part of my book. Days after publication.
So yeah, call me ungrateful. Call me a bitch. Call me whatever you want, cuz I guarantee I've been called worse--and by people whose opinions matter far more to me.
My work isn't trauma porn. If you think it is, you need to reflect on what expectations you brought to my work.
My work isn't trauma porn. If you think it is, you need to reflect on what expectations you brought to my work.
Also: don't think I didn't notice that reviewer didn't mention #mmiwg2s at all, but was sure to mention violence against Indigenous men as a serious problem. In a review of the work of two Indigenous women speaking openly about the violence and intergenerational trauma. 
