Reservation Restless
2021 Southwest Books of the Year
Winner of the 2020 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Autobiography & Memoir
In the powerful and haunting lands of the Southwest, rainbows grow unexpectedly from the sky, mountain lions roam the desert, and summer storms roll over the Colorado River. As a park ranger, Kristofic explores the Ganado valley, traces the paths of the Anasazi, and finds mythic experiences on sacred mountains that explain the pain and loss promised for every person who decides to love. After reconnecting with his Navajo sister and brother, Kristofic must confront his own nightmares of the Anglo society and the future it has created. When the possible deaths of his mentor and of the American future loom before him, Kristofic must find some new way to live in the world and strike some restless path that will lead back to hózhó—a beautiful harmony.
A wonder of autobiography, deep introspection, and marvel at all creation. . . . With the keen eye of an outdoorsman for the sacred landscape and the grace of a gifted storyteller, Kristofic paints word pictures that bring his world to life.'--Helene Woodhams, 2021 Southwest Books of the Year panelist
This is the way to write a memoir, by fixing it within the bigger scope of life. If you like the puzzles of nature’s humanity, rich in vibrant timbres, you’ll not regret adding this to your library.
The episodic narrative is rife with long hikes, daring adventures, and meaningful encounters with wildlife and rainbows.
Kristofic is a masterful storyteller.
Addressing the fraught history between white and Indigenous people, his own personal stories, and the geological features that are particular to Arizona and New Mexico, Kristofic illustrates how places, stories, and the right audience can make a man.
Kristofic thoughtfully interweaves Diné history and folklore with meditations on the destruction of the environment, thus deepening the implications of his story of leaving home in order to return.
Kristofic’s beautiful nature writing is rich in precise detail paired with poetic musings.
An excellent book for general readers and anthropologists wanting to learn more about the joys and challenges of being a bridge between two cultures.
Once in a great while, a miracle of a book comes along, a gift that both touches the heart and engages the mind. Reservation Restless is such a book. Kristofic’s entertaining, jaw-droppingly honest recollections of adventures and explorations on and off the Navajo Nation come with a poet’s respect for the perfect word in the perfect place.
Reservation Restless is a book about growing up, loss, and arrival, all of it told in stories populated by walks, books, Navajos, mentors, river guides, canyons, and coyotes. Oh yes, and rainbows you get to touch.
Beautiful, evocative, Kristofic has written a book that conveys that sense of mythic reality that pervades every corner of the Colorado Plateau. He reveals portals into indigenous mind rarely understood by non-Native peoples.…It makes you pull the nails out of your frame of reference in order that you may perceive with greater clarity.
Jim Kristofic grew up on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona. He has written for The Navajo Times, Arizona Highways, Native Peoples Magazine, and High Country News. He is the author of Medicine Women: The Story of the First Native American Nursing School and Navajos Wear Nikes: A Reservation Life. He lives in Taos, New Mexico.
Acknowledgments
Prologue. Rainbow Walk
Lion Path
The Prom Night Rejects
Running Red River
Jim Danger
Water Is Life
Yellow Evening Twilight
We Know How To Stay Blood
The Homecoming
Wearing Your Adobes
The People Are The Corn
Until I See You Walking Again
The Bluebird People
Path of Renewal
Damn Tire Pounders
The Song of the Cells
With Our Lanterns On
Where the Black Line Extends
Epilogue. The Bluebird Speaks
