Wow. There are few other words that do justice to A Council of Dolls, by Mona Susan Power (publication date August 8, 2023).
Told in multiple perspectives over several time periods in the late 1800s and through the 1900s, each of the storylines involves a doll given to the little girl that is the main protagonist of that storyline. Each girl has a special relationship to her doll, and Power uses fabulism in that the girls can hear what the dolls have to say. Each girl is in a different generation of Dakhóta and Lakhóta women and girls in a single Native American family, so we learn what haunts each of them. From the girls forced to go to Indian boarding school and the horrifying things that happen there, through the mental health effects of family separation, alcoholism, and genocide that last for generations, to the descendant who has inherited the dolls and tells their stories, Power gives them all voices.
She doesn’t flinch or write to please the white gaze.
When I won the statewide spelling bee this week, up against adults from all over North Dakota, you’d think from the nun’s face that I’d just taken the Lord’s name in vain while shooting up the room.
Mona Susan Power, A Council of Dolls
While there is a lot that might be difficult to read, I challenge white people to bear witness–to read it and not look away. We have to acknowledge the horrors of the past so that they are not repeated. Power’s language is beautiful and powerful and A Council of Dolls is a contender for one of my top ten books of 2023.
Your birthdays reminded her that she was a mother with a precious being in her care, and she would dig inside, dig inside, trying to convince herself she could do the job. She wanted to be good for you. She lived with so much mean noise in her head. Well, I guess you know something about that yourself.
Mona Susan Power, A Council of Dolls
It was completely free of anti-fat bias, that I can recall. Thanks to NetGalley for the e-galley in exchange for an honest review.
Remember what you told me one time, how you felt your main job some years was to stay alive? Well, you did your job, you made it through. Not everyone does. It takes fortitude.
Mona Susan Power, A Council of Dolls
Reading While Fat 