The compelling sequel to Dances With Wolves
Eleven years have passed since Lieutenant John Dunbar became the Comanche warrior Dances With Wolves and married Stands With A Fist, a white-born woman raised as a Comanche from early childhood. With their three children, they live peacefully in the village of Ten Bears. But there is unease in the air, caused by increased reports of violent … increased reports of violent confrontations with white soldiers, who want to drive the Comanche onto reservations.
Disquiet turns to horror, and then to rage, when a band of white rangers descends on Ten Bear’s village, slaughtering half its inhabitants and abducting Stands With A Fist and her infant daughter. The three surviving great warriors – Wind In His Hair, Kicking Bird, and Dances With Wolves – decide they must go to war with the white invaders. At the same time, Dances With Wolves realizes that only he can rescue his wife and child.
Told with the same sweep, insight, and majesty that have made Dances With Wolves a worldwide phenomenon, The Holy Road is an epic story of courage and honor.more
I had no idea that this sequel to Dances With Wolves existed. Well written and engaging for so many reasons, it remains a heartbreaking book. Though the novel’s violence and bloodshed are not gratuitous, the setting plants you firmly in the midst of that tragic world of white invasion and Indian retaliation. Thus my four stars per violence serves as a warning. Still, in an age where much of our history is whitewashed or removed, kudos to the author for telling it like it is. Yes, it’s only fiction but Michael Blake seems to be quite knowledgeable and spins an engrossing story very different than Dances With Wolves. I was sad to learn of the author’s passing. Interestingly, this sequel seems to be written about a decade after the major blockbuster Dances With Wolves.
It took me longer to read the book, “The Holy Road.” The second part of “Dances With Wolves,” brought all the characters back. I saw that not many had read the book or provided a review. It had a low score of stars for a book you might think would be a hit following the movie made from book one. I also gave my review of book one and decided that since I’m an Indigenous person, my review should be here as well.
I was excited to read the continued story of Dances With Wolves, Stands With A Fist, Kicking Bird, Smiles A Lot and of course Ten Bears. Like before, I won’t be giving away the story, no reveals. I recommend you read the book for yourself. As I read each chapter though, I found myself stopping to reflect on what I had read. The author in this second book, had used actual characteristics and events of real Native warriors from many different tribes of the past…for this story. Each time I clicked on where a certain characteristic or event was used…my mind would flash to our Indigenous stories of the real people these things happened to. For me, this made the continuity of the story a little more difficult to get pulled into. I’m sure many of you who don’t know about these events, won’t have this problem. As I completed my reading of the book, I was sure I understood why many people didn’t like book two as much as they did “Dances With Wolves.” “Dances With Wolves” was able to bring the non-native reader into the Indigenous story of warriors. It was a love story and who doesn’t enjoy a good love story. To the fans of Western genre, it was a hit. “The Holy Road” on the other hand, was basically the story of the fall of free Indigenous tribes, trying to survive annihilation from the manifest destiny of North America. How they were put onto reservations and left to rot by the government, became part of the focus of book two. People who had read book one, became the characters in stories of cowboys and Indians. Book two took away the Hollywood version of Indigenous people, replacing it with the truth that isn’t allowed to be taught in schools today. America doesn’t want any stories of it’s truth, leaving them with a black eye. They only want history to know America as the victors of that war…the heroes. Book two was able to show a different side to the suffering of their favorite characters from book one. I feel this is the reason why book two didn’t get four stars or better…and why it’s not as popular as book one. For me, I did enjoy reading both books. Reading them makes you love the characters. Most people want the fairy tale, “Happy Ending.” That doesn’t happen for the Indigenous people of the Americas. In the United States, our last census in 2020 showed that there are 330 million people here. What is not taught in history or schools, at the time of 1492… there were over 320 million Indigenous people in the Americas. In that last census…Indigenous people are only 1% of the population now. Native Americans are sentenced to extirpation and obscurity. We are a strong people on a long, hard path towards the future.