Summary

The memoir opens in the direction of East, of new beginnings, and Joy Harjo’s memory of being in the back seat of her father’s Cadillac. They were driving in Tulsa, the northern border of the Creek Nation, the sun hot, and Harjo had an epiphany. Though she was too small to understand the word jazz, she becomes aware of the trumpet, its sound, and follows it back to its beginning line, even to the beginning of sound. She finds it a way to speak beyond the confines of ordinary language.

Joy Harjo expresses that her memoir is also a story of her ancestors, ones she can name and countless others. For example, Harjo’s grandparents grew up in Moody Oklahoma and had seven children, six boys and one girl. Destitute, they had to live in an abandoned haunted house while her...