Kirjahaku

A gravestone, a mention in local archives, stories still handed down around Oyster Bay: the outline of a woman begins to emerge and with her the world she inhabited, so rich in tradition and shaken by violent change. Katie Kettle Gale was born into a Salish community in Puget Sound in the 1850s, just as settlers were migrating into what would become Washington State. With her people forced out of their traditional hunting and fishing grounds into ill-provisioned island camps and reservations, Katie Gale sought her fortune in Oyster Bay. In that early outpost of multiculturalism—where Native Americans and immigrants from the eastern United States, Europe, and Asia vied for economic, social, political, and legal power—a woman like Gale could make her way. As LLyn De Danaan mines the historical record, we begin to see Gale, a strong-willed Native woman who cofounded a successful oyster business, then won the legal rights from her Euro-American husband, a man with whom she had raised children but who ultimately made her life unbearable. Steeped in sadness—with a lost home and a broken marriage, children dying in their teens, and tuberculosis claiming her at forty-three—Katie Gale’s story is also one of remarkable pluck, a tale of hard work and ingenuity, gritty initiative and bad luck that is, ultimately, essentially American.

Unlike science fiction books that focus on the fight against evil forces, LLyn De Danaan's "Big Adventure on Moa Nui: The Very Mysterious Events on a South Pacific Island and Their Resolution" (ISBN 1466267054) follows quirky characters on a rather lighthearted escapade that makes for an unforgettable experience. Anthropologist Fiona Elizabeth Kelly is called to assist residents of a South Pacific Island who witness inexplicable events. As she investigates, she finds mysteries that involve, in the main, the female population of the island. Not only are older women waking up with tattoos they didn't have the night before, but also all of the women are menstruating at the same time every month. As out of the ordinary incidents spread to island missionaries and household appliances, Kelly knows her work is critical. At first, her only companion is a dog, but eventually her allies and helpers expand to include other colorful islanders. With the help of a musket-toting cosmetic saleswoman, a reclusive poet, and a Newfoundlander cello player, Kelly stumbles upon a scary discovery.

A gravestone, a mention in local archives, stories still handed down around Oyster Bay: the outline of a woman begins to emerge and with her the world she inhabited, so rich in tradition and shaken by violent change. Katie Kettle Gale was born into a Salish community in Puget Sound in the 1850s, just as settlers were migrating into what would become Washington State. With her people forced out of their traditional hunting and fishing grounds into ill-provisioned island camps and reservations, Katie Gale sought her fortune in Oyster Bay. In that early outpost of multiculturalism-where Native Americans and immigrants from the eastern United States, Europe, and Asia vied for economic, social, political, and legal power-a woman like Gale could make her way. As LLyn De Danaan mines the historical record, we begin to see Gale, a strong-willed Native woman who cofounded a successful oyster business, then won the legal rights from her Euro-American husband, a man with whom she had raised children but who ultimately made her life unbearable. Steeped in sadness-with a lost home and a broken marriage, children dying in their teens, and tuberculosis claiming her at forty-three-Katie Gale’s story is also one of remarkable pluck, a tale of hard work and ingenuity, gritty initiative and bad luck that is, ultimately, essentially American.