David Treuer

What does it say about our troubled times — and David Treuer’s considerable talents — that his World War II-era novel speaks to the present moment in American history with more eloquence and complexity than the nightly newscast? Inequalities of race, class, gender and sexual orientation; the treatment of captured combatants; the Escheresque ethics of bombing civilians a world away; the culture that allows white people to shoot people of color with impunity; all this, and much more besides, resonates through Treuer’s tender and devastating book…[A] master class on suspense, shifting perspective and conflicting desire.

[Prudence is]…at once both blunt and hushed in tone, wielding a sledgehammer while walking on tiptoes….each new page breeds both familiarity and — partly because of that familiarity — the capacity to surprise… By taking us one step backward for every two steps forward, Treuer doesn’t just unravel the plot we might expect; he prompts us to interrogate the assumptions — racial, sexual and otherwise — that build up those expectations in the first place.

David Treuer is a literary shape-shifter…true to form, his latest book, Prudence, is unlike all its predecessors: a tightly plotted hybrid fiction that combines elements of a mystery, a literary romance and a Greek tragedy.

So good that when you get to the end, you’ll want to reread the beginning to see how the author set his magic in motion…This gorgeously restrained novel has much to say about race, class, gender, sexuality, love and war through the stories of men and women whose fates become urgently important to us.

David Treuer beautifully captures a place and an era. . . . Treuer imbues mundane moments with reverence… And he masterfully weaves into the narrative minor characters who have major resonance.

Treuer’s writing is supple, his story intricate. That it’s set against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in history makes it all the more haunting and powerful.

In Prudence, natural-born storyteller David Treuer spins a vivid, sorrowful tale… [A] master craftsman of evocative scenes…Prudence is evidence that Treuer’s literary powers continue to grow. He knows people and goes to places foreign to most American writers, and his stories deeply honor “the unremembered,” to whom he dedicates this book.

Prudence is an intricate ensemble piece; exploring themes of loss, desire, race, war, and the secrets we keep, through the point of view of five beautifully realized characters…In clear, uncluttered prose, Treuer guides us through 10 years [and] multiple voices…gorgeous.

David Treuer’s experience writing about Native American history and culture is apparent in this analysis of race and memory.

Magnetizing and richly original…[with] extraordinarily affecting characters … Treuer’s trenchant and compassionate novel glimmers with nature’s potent beauty, fresh historical detail, and scrupulous insight.

Achingly moving… speaks volumes about…integrity, culpability, and resilience in the face of collective tragedy.

A self-assured, absorbing story…[that] explores the darkness at our cores.

Thoughtful and engaging… a well-told tale with realistically portrayed characters…[and] a voice that is low key but forceful…[and] elevate[s] this story to a powerful level.

David Treuer’s novel Prudence is a wondrous and mesmerizing narrative–intricate, seductive and wholly gratifying.

This is a beautiful, somber, unlikely love story, as pure as the Minnesota landscape against which it is tragically played out.

David Treuer is a writer of remarkable strengths....Poised, lyrical, compassionate, knowledgeable, wise, and inventive.

Stunning....A masterpiece, a book that might easily become a classic of North American literature.

A wonder...Treuer has forged a strong intricate narrative complete with intimate voices of fully realized characters.

A gritty, raw, and thoroughly authentic look at reservation life—as experienced from the inside out. Here is modern America glimpsed through a different membrane, narrated in a fresh new voice. In this searching, at times heartbreaking, but often triumphant mélange of history, journalism, and memoir, Treuer loudly proclaims that all reports of the American Indian’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

[Rez Life] is not, for all its intimacy, just as it is not exactly a work of reportage or a work of history. Rather, it is a nuanced hybrd, a memoir, broken into six chapters, each of which begins in the personal, then expands outward to a larger theme. Sovereignty, fishing, treaty rights, the tribal justice system, education, language and assimilation—Treuer examines all of it, finding associations between the broadest stories and the most individual.

An affecting portrait of his childhood home, Leech Lake Indian Reservation, and his people, the Ojibwe.

An invaluable study and vivid account of problematic life on our reservations by a writer—a very good writer!—raised ‘on the rez’ who knows what he’s talking about only too well and also knows how to tell a story, lots of stories, that document and effectively banish a number of misconceptions still held by white society. Highly recommended.

Stunning. . . . Treuer’s edgy romance celebrates our love for each other, love for the earth and love of story, the way we make sense of life in all its wildness.

Deeply crafty, shape-shifting. . . . [Treuer] seems to want to do for Native American culture and literature what James Joyce did for the Irish: haul it into the mainstream of Western culture through sheer nerve and verve.

The Translation of Dr Apelles . . . provides new layers of information and meaning with every pass. This Escher-esque craftsmanship dazzles.

David Treuer is mounting a challenge to the whole idea of Indian identity as depicted by both Native and white writers.

Smart, sweet . . . well-crafted, clever. . . . Treuer juggles multiple elements with skill and confidence: literary satire, metafictional gamesmanship and cultural truth-telling.