SOURCE: Review of Dead Voices, in Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 11, 1992, p. 6.

In the review below, the critic states that Dead Voices is a difficult but original work.

A dirty, toothless, malodorous American Indian woman lives in an apartment near Lake Merritt in Oakland. People who wait at a nearby bus stop call her "the crazy bear." This isn't just an insult; it's a remnant of the intuitive animal knowledge that white city-dwellers have almost lost. For the woman, playing the "wanaki game" with cards and mirrors, can indeed transform herself into a bear—or into a stone, a flea, a squirrel, a praying mantis, a crow, a beaver or that staple of Indian folklore, a "trickster."

Then along comes a young academic—much like author Gerald Vizenor, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley. He persuades the woman, Bagese, to tell him her animal stories...