Even As We Breathe, Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
Even As We Breathe, Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
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Even As We Breathe
A Novel

Author: Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

Narrator: Kaipo Schwab

Unabridged: 8 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/22/2021

Synopsis

Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. With World War II raging in Europe, the inn is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. Soon, Cowney's refuge becomes a cage when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing and he finds himself accused of abduction and murder.

Even As We Breathe invokes the elements of bone, blood, and flesh as Cowney navigates difficult social, cultural, and ethnic divides. After leaving the seclusion of the Cherokee reservation, he is able to explore a future free from the consequences of his family's choices and to construct a new worldview, for a time. However, prejudice and persecution in the white world of the resort eventually compel Cowney to free himself from larger forces that hold him back as he struggles to unearth evidence of his innocence and clear his name.

About Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), holds degrees from Yale University and the College of William and Mary. Her work Going to Water won the Morning Star Award for Creative Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium and was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. She is coeditor of the Journal of Cherokee Studies and serves on the board of trustees for the North Carolina Writers' Network. She resides in Qualla, North Carolina.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Melissa (Home from Greece and in Catch-Up Mode)

2.5 stars, rounded up. This was my book club read for March. It is set in North Carolina during the summer of 1942. Cowney Sequoyah lives in Cherokee and is at a crossroads in his life--he's tried junior college and it didn't work for him, now he's trying to decide what the future holds. A birth defe......more

Goodreads review by Toni

This book is another case of wanting to like the book more than I actually did in the end. There were some beautifully rendered moments in this book, and the last pages are especially heartfelt and affecting. However, as whole, the story just felt a bit flat, never quite bringing me into its grasp.......more

Goodreads review by Kasa

I became aware of Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle's debut through a zoom interview with Louise Erdrich in which she said she was a Native American writer to watch. What makes this story stand out is its location -- Cherokee, a town in western North Carolina where a tribe exists even today. It is 1942, a......more

Goodreads review by Molly

Lots of historical anachronisms (the story takes place in 1942) . Unconvincing character voices, and no clear conflict. Very little sense of place, which was surprising and disappointing. I had such high hopes for this book: I was looking forward to the setting in place and time, the cultural backgr......more

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