The Beadworkers
Stories

Name: The Beadworkers
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: Beth Piatote
ISBN: 9781094101323

Author: Beth Piatote

Narrator: Beth Piatote, various narrators, Christian Nagler, Fantasia Painter, Drew Woodson, Phillip Cash Cash, Keevin Hesuse

Unabridged: 5 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Published: 05/30/2020

Categories: Fiction, Short Stories

Synopsis

Beth Piatote’s luminous debut collection opens with a feast, grounding its stories in the landscapes and lifeworlds of the Native Northwest, exploring the inventive and unforgettable pattern of Native American life in the contemporary worldTold with humor, subtlety, and spareness, the mixed-genre works of Beth Piatote’s first collection find unifying themes in the strength of kinship, the pulse of longing, and the language of return.A woman teaches her niece to make a pair of beaded earrings while ruminating on a fractured relationship. An eleven-year-old girl narrates the unfolding of the Fish Wars in the 1960s as her family is propelled to its front lines. In 1890, as tensions escalate at Wounded Knee, two young men at college—one French and the other Lakota—each contemplate a death in the family. In the final, haunting piece, a Nez Perce–Cayuse family is torn apart as they debate the fate of ancestral remains in a moving revision of the Greek tragedy Antigone.Formally inventive and filled with vibrant characters, The Beadworkers draws on Indigenous aesthetics and forms to offer a powerful, sustaining vision of Native life.

About Beth Piatote

Beth Piatote is a writer and scholar. She is Nez Perce from Chief Joseph’s Band, and is an enrolled member of the Colville Confederated Tribes. She holds a PhD from Stanford University, and is currently an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in the Bay Area with her two children.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Dani on November 04, 2019

My life wouldn’t be as full if I hadn’t begun beading. Beadwork balances us. It allows us to decolonize that much more. It connects us to our ancestors and our kin. After finishing The Beadworkers by Nez Perce author Beth Piatote I was convinced this collection contains the same good medicine that b......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on July 27, 2019

Piatote's stories seem to somehow tenderly pull no punches. There are people who seem to think Native Americans and their cultures are something of the past, but they'd be incorrect-- Natives are alive and well, rightly reclaiming their traditions and challenging the effects of colonization. The Bea......more

Goodreads review by Becky on January 12, 2022

New favorite. Piatote is Nez Perce, and an associate professor of Native American studies at UC Berkeley. She speaks brilliantly about colonialism and the violence against Native families that persists today, and this ongoing war is a theme in her creative works as well. Also, her passion for Indigen......more

Quotes

"The Beadworkers is a feast of wit and storytelling. I read it once to see where Piatote would go next. Twice to savor the emotional, cultural, and structural resonance of this wonderful work.” Louise Erdrich, New York Times bestselling author

“A collection that gives voice to what is so often left unsaid.” San Francisco Chronicle

“Marvelous…The Beadworkers is an intricate and poignant set of meditations on how to move forward with identity and hope intact while reconciling with loss, both collective and personal.” Salon

“Gripping and utterly readable…The stories here are wide-ranging but encompass many perspectives of Indigenous people in North America.” Literary Hub

“Mixes poetry, verse, and prose to form an impressive reflection on the lives of modern Native Americans…This beautiful collection announces Piatote as a writer to watch.” Publishers Weekly

“Piatote draws the reader in with spare and perceptive language and resonate empathy for each struggling yet resilient character.” Booklist

“Beth Piatote strings together stories like the intricate strands of a handmade necklace…The collected pieces of The Beadworkers explore place and identity in vibrant scenes. Throughout, Piatote reveals Native American life in contexts modern, historic and mythical.” BookPage

“A poignant and challenging look at the way the past and present collide.” Kirkus Reviews

Awards

Chicago Review of Books Pick
Nylon Magazine Pick
Literary Hub Pick
Salon Magazine Pick
Aspen Words Literary Prize
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction
Reading the West Book Award
BookPage Top Pick
AudioFile Earphones Award