Perma Red

(Paperback)

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Bold, passionate, and more urgent than ever, Debra Magpie Earlings powerful classic novel is reborn in this new edition.

On the Flathead Indian Reservation, summer is ending, and Louise White Elk is determined to forge her own path. Raised by her Grandmother Magpie after the death of her mother, Louise and her younger sister have grown up into the harsh social and physical landscape of western Montana in the 1940s, where Native people endure boarding schools and life far from home. As she approaches adulthood, Louise hopes to create an independent life for herself and an improved future for her familybut three persistent men have other plans.

Since childhood, Louise has been pursued by Baptiste Yellow Knife, feared not only for his rough-and-tumble ways, but also for the preternatural gifts of his bloodline. Baptistes rival is his cousin, Charlie Kicking Woman: a man caught between worlds, torn between his duty as a tribal officer and his fascination with Louise. And then there is Harvey Stoner. The white real estate mogul can offer Louise her wildest dreams of freedom, but at what cost

As tensions mount, Louise finds herself trying to outrun the bitter clutches of winter and the will of powerful men, facing choices that will alter her lifeand end anothersforever.

Reviews

Winner of the American Book Award, the Reading the West Book Award, and the Western Writers of American Spur Award for Best Novel of the West

Perma Red has no equal. You will be mesmerized by the poetically intimate prose, the realistically graphic details of life on a Montana Indian reservation, and the humor, love and pain youll experience through these richly drawn, honest characters. As another of Montanas greatest writers, James Welch, put it: Perma Red borders on mythic . . . a wonder-filled gift to all.Mark Gibbons, NPR

Boldly drawn and passionate.Louise Erdrich, author ofThe Sentence

Transcendent, powerful, and has a gravity all its own.Jamie Ford, Today.com

Spare, tough-minded and big hearted.USA Today

[Perma Red has] beautiful language, complex characters, a legitimate and earned sense of where you are in the story. Its also a gnarly, unflinching look at violence against women. The writing is lovely, emotionally resonant and filled to the brim with depth

and pathos for the Flathead and the people who live there. But its a novel of

pain and sorrow first and foremost, and its a pain and sorrow that looks a lot like it has for the last half millenia.Thomas Plank, Missoulian

Dreamy and lyrical, frequently achieving a shimmering beauty.TheOregonian

A fever of a story, keenly fighting for air and answers.San Francisco Chronicle

Its not just erotic desire that [Earling] does so well. . . . Louises world is one in which all the senses are always on hyper-alert. . . . This young girls struggle to save her own life makes for a novel that hasyouon hyper-alert as you read: alive, alive to the world it conjures.Alan Cheuse, NPR

Haunting and memorable . . . Earlings deliberate pacing gives an otherworldly feel to the grim circumstances of the time, and makes real the hypnotic effect of this slim, green-eyed woman on the men around her.Seattle Times

Beautifully written . . . Establishes Earling as the literary heir to great American Indian writers such as James Welch and Louise Erdrich.Minneapolis Star Tribune

A new writer comes straight at us out of the West, bypassing the conscious mind in describing her world of Indian reservations, so that we almost smell that world before we understand it. . . . [Earlings] writing is the most physical I have read in a long time. . . . Verbs and adjectives dance in new configurations. All this and plot too.Los Angeles Times

What a story! Vivid and startling, this heartbreaking novel tells the story of Louise White Elk, a wild and unattainable girl growing to womanhood on the Flathead Reservation in Northwest Montana. Beautiful but crushed by poverty and the sorrow inflicted by the clash of cultures, harsh circumstance, and the friction between love and power, Louise is pursued by several men. A wealthy white land speculator and a rodeo cowboy tempt her. The tribal policeman who tries repeatedly to save her cannot subdue his tainted motives. But it is the violent, unpredictable Baptiste Yellowknife, with his connection to the old ways, who holds great power over her. Though she uses each to help her find her way, no one and nothing is simple here. These complex characters and the rough beauty of the Flathead Reservation will stay with you long after you close the cover.Keelin Kane, Next Chapter Books, St. Paul, MN

"From the very first sentence of Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling, Louise White Elks struggle is unrelenting, swallowing readers into a story that shocks, and somehow, brims with complicated, raw hope."Maggie Doherty, Flathead Beacon

"I was captivated by Louise While Elk as she struggles to retain her Indigenous identity and ways while trying to break free from all the barriers and biases against women and Native peoples in 1940s Montana.Jennifer Wood, East City Bookshop, Washington, DC

Louise White Elk grows up on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. Her experiences are defined by the lack of opportunities, and its a rough ride filled with many challenges. What are the best choices when none of them are good Its great that Milkweed is bringing back this twenty-year-old novel in a new edition. Its just as timely as when it was written.Todd Miller, Arcadia Books, Spring Green, WI

Earling is a talent to treasure. . . . Beauty lies in [her] writing. Her words are spare, like the landscape and the bleak hearts of those who judge and torment Louise. Her words are sharp, biting, like the snakes that slither through the tale. Her words are honed to bare Louise's wounds.Billings Gazette

A haunting tale of persecution, brutality and prejudice . . . paint[ing] a powerful picture of mans inhumanity to manone as dark and uncaring as Montanas midnight landscapes.Texas Observer

Superb . . . A love story of uncommon depth and power, a love story that is as painful as it is transcendent, a love story in which the lovers . . . are unwilling to diminish themselves in the act of joining together but are equally unable to turn away.Booklist

This is a book Ive read again and again, and each time I do, Earlings words are a treasured and welcomed power.Sasha LaPointe, Publishers Weekly, 10 Books by Native Authors That Left Their Mark on Me

Poignant . . . Earling offers first-rate characterizations, and she does an equally fine job portraying tribal life in the Flatland Nation.Publishers Weekly

Perma Redis a startlingly spiritual novel of the lives and loves and heartbreak on a Montana Indian reservation. The characters, especially the strangely destructive lovers, Louise and Baptiste, are so sharply drawn that they will bring tears to your eyes. And the landscape, the richly detailed backdrop against which these characters play out their roles, adds a dimension that borders on mythic. Debra Magpie Earling is a truly gifted writer, andPerma Redis a wonder-filled gift to all of us.James Welch, author ofFools Crow

In the deep wells of compassion for her people, and with her stunning eye for the rituals of their existence, Earling reminds us that the greatest writing is always about matters of the human heart.Larry Brown, author ofJoe

Perma Redis a terrific novel, tough-minded, gritty, and powerful . . . rich with stories of such elemental truth that they have the resonance of sacred songs, the lingering effect of legends. I havent read a novel that affected me this much since I first encountered Leslie SilkosCeremony.James Crumley, author ofThe Last Good Kiss

WithPerma Red, Debra Magpie Earling finally steps forward after two decades and delivers a book as permanently beautiful as the Montana landscape itself. I find it hard, if not impossible, to shake Earlings book from my mind. To paraphrase another Big Sky writer, Norman Maclean, I am haunted by words.David Abrams, author ofFobbit

Author Bio

Debra Magpie Earling is the author of Perma Red and The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. An earlier version of the latter, written in verse, was produced as an artist book during the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. She has received both a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She retired from the University of Montana where she was named professor emeritus in 2021. She is Bitterroot Salish.