Review highlights of Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans by Alison Owings

Publishers Weekly (starred review) 

“…. [Owings achieves] a remarkable level of intimacy. … They have much to teach the world, Owings concludes, especially when it comes to living a satisfied life. This engrossing, affecting book should be mandatory reading in American history classes ” -Read More

Library Journal (starred review)
“… a rich collection that is poignant, funny, heartbreaking, and very real. The vast diversity in Native America is evident. Each interviewee comes across multidimensionally, strongly and openly identifying with his or her tribe or nation, while balancing tradition, language, heritage, politics, and identity with the day-to-day business of working, parenting, creating, traveling, and living. Similarities are evident, but so are rich differences in perspective, status, circumstance, and outlook. ” -Read More

News from Native California
“Owings’s prose is lucid and clear, and she tells the stories of her informants effectively, weaving their words together with her own observations. But the real stars here are the people themselves and the stories they choose to tell. … Ultimately, Owings’s book is aimed at a wide audience, at those Americans who are as ignorant of Native Americans as she once was. But that is not to say that it is not also a book for the people it is about. Native people of all backgrounds and opinions will find something to engage with in IndianVoices: something to laugh with, to sympathize with, perhaps even to argue with.”
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Indian Country Today
“An important (and entertaining!) new book on Native Americans lets the real experts do the talking. … Owings conducted long, intimate and sometimes shockingly candid interviews that touched on many topics, from adultery to haircuts to politics, but often circled back to the often staggering ignorance of non-Natives, some of whom do not realize that Native Americans still exist, much less speak English, have cell phones, use the Internet, and attend both pow wows and power lunches.” -Read More

American Indian Library Association
“This is a model of what a good oral history book should be. ….  She tells our stories honestly, eloquently and without her own baggage, and our people’s stories don’t pull many punches either.  Survivance shines through in every chapter.” — John D. Berry (Choctaw/Cherokee), MLIS/MA , Native Studies Librarian, U.C. Berkeley -Read More

Silicon Valley Mercury News
“Captivating… The interviews cover a wide range of topics; told in oral history style and punctuated by Owings’ reactions and insights, the results are occasionally startling, often humorous and always thought-provoking.”
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Trahant Reports

“One of those remarkable people that’s portrayed in Indian Voices is Emma George. She’s Lemhi Shoshone, the Shoshone band that first encountered Lewis & Clark….” – Mark Trahant, Trahant Reports -Read More

Iowa Gazette
“Owings lets readers make their own sense of the how her interviewees’ varied lives and experiences might fit together to paint a broader picture. The result is an accessible uniquely personal look at key contemporary issues.”
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Native Peoples Law Caucus of American Association of Law Libraries
“This book is an excellent addition to the ongoing conversation between Natives and non-Natives and it also enhances mutual understanding among the Peoples of this country. … Owings is a good writer and an even better listener.  She manages to present the stories told by real-life Natives/Indians/Tribal People with attention to detail and as accurately as a person outside the culture probably could.  She brings her own perspective to the stories and although these asides may make many Natives/Indians smile in all-too familiar recognition of encounters with non-Natives, they also help to illustrate the uniqueness of Native/Tribal culture.” -Read More

Pacific Sun, San Rafael CA
“Surprisingly lacking the strands of white-guilt that one may expect in a book written by a Caucasian about Native Americans, Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans is as informative as it is refreshing. … offers up chapter after chapter of interviews with Native Americans across the country, addressing issues of substance abuse, health, repatriation, familial bonds, ceremonies—and that ever-prevalent Native humor.” -Read More