CL Pauwels at Large

Things that amazed/intrigued/surprised me about D.M. Rowell’s debut novel Never Name the Dead:

• The culture of her family tribe, Kiowa, or Cáuigú IPA, fills the book with the fascinating perspective of her people – a Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Rowell’s Indigenous name is Koyh Mi O Boy Dah.

• We first meet Her protagonist Mae “Mud” Sawpole (given name: Ahn Tsah Hye-gyah-daw – She Who Knows the Way) at Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport in Oklahoma – a place I’m far too familiar with (tangentially) as Hubby’s work takes him through there way too often. Howell’s descriptions and his mesh wonderfully.

• Mae (with the childhood nickname of “Mud”) struggles to bridge her traditional upbringing with an out-of-state career in the business world in ways both different yet relateable. Don’t we all deal with meeting family expectations…or not? When she returns home at her grandfather’s cryptic request – “I have a bad feeling. Come now.” – she’s forced to juggle vital work deadlines with an equally (more?) important deadline in her tribal community. Rowell’s characters, and the Oklahoma landscape, are captivating.

• The entire 325 pages of Never Name the Dead cover a single day in Mud’s life. How did Rowell do that so well?! From her arrival home at the airport to the very public denouement at the end of that long day, the pace never lets up but doesn’t seem frenetic or forced.

Rest assured, I’m ready to pre-order Rowell’s sequel which comes out this fall.