The main reason I picked up this book is because I very much enjoy stories about Native American/white relations in the colonial days, particular captive ones. Come to think of it, though, I've really only read one novel I thought did a decent job of portraying these circumstances. This one did not.

The main premise of this book is that a young man who was captured and adopted into a Native American tribe (the Lenape, I believe) has to be returned to his white family. This was a pretty common occurrence. Native Americans would take whites as replacements for the family members they lost, but often were forced to return them after many years had gone by and the captives had become family members and happy in their new environments. If it was painful for the families, it must have been excruciating for the captives. To live one life, then get used to another and accept that it was all there was going to be only to be returned to the first life against their will. . .that seems very difficult and fraught with painful emotions.

While the author does a halfway decent job of showing the emotional turmoil of the main character, True Son, the problem isn't with True Son. It's with everyone else. The Native American characters are admirable but are very rigid in their beliefs and decisions. No less rigid are the whites. Everyone seems to have one opinion about everything and will not ever stray from it. You can see where they would get these ideas but it makes it hard to sympathize with anyone. With the Native Americans, they take the stance that it's okay to steal and kill the whites because the whites did it to them first. Fair enough that the whites probably did it first, but does that make retaliation okay? Maybe in their minds but not in mine, and I find it a personal turn-off. The white continually refer to the Native Americans and everything they do in condescending, racist ways. Also not okay. Even when their son returns, they don't try and understand him. They just try to squash the Native American out of him. I found basically everything out of every character's mouth to be grating on my nerves and vaguely offensive in one way or another. Even with True Son, he was hard to understand at times, on an emotional level.

My only other comment on the novel is that it sort of seemed like the author had done some petty research into Native American culture, such as names for things and some vague religious ideas, and stuck EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM into the novel in such a way that it felt very forced and stilted. It wasn't a learning process, where the reader got to pick up some new phrases and ideas, but a recitation in an aren't-I-so-clever way. I found it obtrusive.

All in all, there are much better books on this subject out there. My favorite is Standing in the Light and I seriously recommend you check that one out before this one.