Overview

Native puppeteers from the White Earth Reservation search for the meaning of life_x000D_ _x000D_ Theatre of Chance is the final novel in the series that started with Blue Ravens, and continued with Waiting for Wovoka, about a group of native puppeteers from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. The characters continue their adventures from the White Earth Reservation to an existential colony: the urban reservation in Minneapolis. Basile, the native elder, has become an editorial writer, and the stowaways continue their creative puppet parleys in the context of the historical moment, enduring with ironic parleys the election of Richard Nixon as president. Dummy Trout and the stowaways secure a houseboat and with the loyal mongrels return to French Portage Narrows in Lake of the Woods, the birthplace of Dummy Trout. There, for the first time in more than seventy years she whispers a few words, ending the shamanic silence of her marvelous encounters on the White Earth Reservation and in the native existential colony of Minneapolis.

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9780819501554

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Reviews

"""Vizenor's five semi-autobiographical novel takes Anishinaabe rebels from World War I to the momentous sixties, from White Earth Nation to survivance. They overcome oppression with irony and solidarity. Their affinities with classical culture become the matrix of survivance. Powerful and poetic, precisely staged, brilliant and poignant. A lifetime achievement.""-- ""Theatre of Chance brings Basile and Aloysius, with their composite clan, into the social turmoil of the late 20th century. A heart story told in Vizenor's singular voice, this poignant flourish to their epic journey transforms the historical novel into personal, visionary tales of survivance against narrow economic, philosophical, artistic, and political failures of the past century.""-- ""How do Erik the Red and Crist�bal Col�n debate Columbus Day? Only visitors to the Theatre of Chance will find out. The most prolific voice in Indigenous Studies today, Vizenor continues his lifelong intertextual celebration of nicknames, ironic tease, and native liberty in this masterful sequel to Waiting for Wovoka.""-- ""In a career, both protean and prolific, now in its seventh decade, Gerald Vizenor just keeps getting better. No one pours more music into their prose. He is the bard of chance and survivance.""--"

""This book (and the series as a whole) is better understood as a space-time travel history in which the past is never really past, the future creates the present, and any given present location is deeply connected to other places in other times. It is a hyperwarped hyper-reality beyond postmodern--a supermodern literature that strings together collectivity for a hyperindividualized world.""--Robert B. Caldwell Jr., State University of New York, University at Buffalo, American Indian Culture and Research Journal ""Vizenor's fifth semi-autobiographical novel takes Anishinaabe rebels from World War I to the momentous sixties, from White Earth Nation to survivance. They overcome oppression with irony and solidarity. Their affinities with classical culture become the matrix of survivance. Powerful and poetic, precisely staged, brilliant and poignant. A lifetime achievement.""--Alice-Catherine Carls, Professor Emerita, University of Tennessee at Martin ""Theatre of Chance brings Basile and Aloysius, with their composite clan, into the social turmoil of the late 20th century. A heart story told in Vizenor's singular voice, this poignant flourish to their epic journey transforms the historical novel into personal, visionary tales of survivance against narrow economic, philosophical, artistic, and political failures of the past century.""--John Purdy, Director/Producer of Bearheart: The Gerald Vizenor Chronicles ""How do Erik the Red and Cristóbal Colón debate Columbus Day? Only visitors to the Theatre of Chance will find out. The most prolific voice in Indigenous Studies today, Vizenor continues his lifelong intertextual celebration of nicknames, ironic tease, and native liberty in this masterful sequel to Waiting for Wovoka.""--Birgit Däwes, University of Flensburg, Germany ""In a career, both protean and prolific, now in its seventh decade, Gerald Vizenor just keeps getting better. No one pours more music into their prose. He is the bard of chance and survivance.""--Jace Weaver, University of Georgia

"""Vizenor's five semi-autobiographical novel takes Anishinaabe rebels from World War I to the momentous sixties, from White Earth Nation to survivance. They overcome oppression with irony and solidarity. Their affinities with classical culture become the matrix of survivance. Powerful and poetic, precisely staged, brilliant and poignant. A lifetime achievement.""--Alice-Catherine Carls, Professor Emerita, University of Tennessee at Martin ""Theatre of Chance brings Basile and Aloysius, with their composite clan, into the social turmoil of the late 20th century. A heart story told in Vizenor's singular voice, this poignant flourish to their epic journey transforms the historical novel into personal, visionary tales of survivance against narrow economic, philosophical, artistic, and political failures of the past century.""--John Purdy, Director/Producer of Bearheart: The Gerald Vizenor Chronicles ""How do Erik the Red and Crist�bal Col�n debate Columbus Day? Only visitors to the Theatre of Chance will find out. The most prolific voice in Indigenous Studies today, Vizenor continues his lifelong intertextual celebration of nicknames, ironic tease, and native liberty in this masterful sequel to Waiting for Wovoka.""--Birgit D�wes, University of Flensburg, Germany ""In a career, both protean and prolific, now in its seventh decade, Gerald Vizenor just keeps getting better. No one pours more music into their prose. He is the bard of chance and survivance.""--Jace Weaver, University of Georgia"

Author Information

GERALD VIZENOR is a prolific novelist, poet, literary critic, and citizen of the White Earth Nation of the Anishinaabeg in Minnesota. He received the 2022 Mark Twain Award for Distinguished Contributions to Midwestern Literature. His novels Shrouds of White Earth and Griever: An American Monkey King in China won American Book Awards, and the latter also earned a New York Fiction Collective Award.

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