Sees Behind Trees

Dorris, Michael. 1996. Sees Behind Trees. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0-7868-0224-3.

The back jacket of my copy of this book says it takes place "before Pocahontas"; reviews say the setting is sixteenth-century America. But Sees Behind Trees seems to me to have more in common with Lois Lowry's books The Giver and Messenger than with conventional historical fiction. In all three of these books, the authors create a setting that's conventional on the surface and mystical underneath. In Sees Behind Trees, the setting comes close to being a character itself, playing a vital role in the climactic events of this mesmerizing story.

Sees Behind Trees' weak eyesight has left him unable to do things like shoot a bow, but taught him to pay attention to his hearing to such an extent that he seems to be able to see things that others can't. When the community becomes aware of his gift at his naming ceremony, wheels start turning in the mind of Gray Fire, an elder and the twin brother of the weroance, the leader of the community. Gray Fire has never been able to forget a mystical place he calls the "land of water," a place he discovered once but could never find his way back to. He believes that Sees Behind Trees, with his special talent, can lead him back.

Even this plot could turn out to be a conventional adventure story, but it isn't. The land of water holds more secrets even than Gray Fire suspects, and Sees Behind Trees must confront not only the ones he encounters there, but the ones he encounters when he returns home.

Dorris is apparently of Modoc ancestry, according to his Wikipedia article. However, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, a respected Native American scholar, refused to accept his writing in the journal she edited because she disputed his claim of Native American ancestry. In her recent book Anti-Indianism in Modern Ameria, she includes a chapter titled "A Mixed-Blood, Tribeless Voice in American Indian Literatures: Michael Dorris." (Unfortunately, I couldn't find this book on ebrary or Net Library, so I couldn't read the chapter for myself.)

Knowing this intensified the doubts I already had about the story. Unlike the Bruchac's picture book, which had excellent authors' notes, and Cynthia Leitich Smith's novel, which she wrote in detail about on her own blog, this story had no information placing it in time, place, or tribe except for a dedication saying that Dorris is "endebted to" Helen Roundtree for her book The Powhatan Indians of Virginia. Dorris says he recommends the book "to all who wish to learn more about the peoples imagined in these pages." This raises more questions than it answers, since it seems to suggest that Dorris might not have known any more about this tribe or its history than he read in Roundtree's book.

On top of this, an incident in the book sticks in my mind. On their travels, Gray Fire and Sees Behind Trees come across a family that doesn't speak their language and apparently comes from another tribe. Sees Behind Trees is incredulous: "Do you mean that there are people besides us? Actual people?" He has to be talked out of thinking that the strangers are ghosts.

This seemed bizarre to me. I could believe that a young man might not have seen strangers before, but not to know that there were real people besides the ones he lived with? To me it made everyone in Sees Behind Trees' community seem crazily primitive and unintelligent. It's the kind of detail that I would only accept with some kind of explanation and historical corroboration.

The question of authority in writing multicultural books for children is a thorny one. In this case, however, my best judgment is that I wouldn't include this book in a collection of Native American literature for young people. As a fantasy, it's first-rate. There's just not enough evidence to convince me that it's not only a fantasy.

In the New York Times Book Review, Nancy Cardozo says ""Sees-Behind-Trees" is a fine example of a rite-of-passage novel that can be read as metaphor or message."

In a starred review, Booklist said the book has "the gravity of legend" and continues, "Dorris once again demonstrates that he is a brilliant and deeply humane writer whose words can show you something you have never seen."

Amazon.com Online Reader. Anti-Indianism in Modern America.

Booklist. Qtd. in Powells.com. http://www.powells.com/biblio?show=TRADE%20PAPER:NEW:9780786813575:4.99#synopses_and_reviews.

Cardozo, Nancy. January 19, 1997. "Children's Books." New York Times Book Review. http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/01/19/reviews/970119.cardozo.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=login.

Wikipedia.org. "Michael Dorris." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dorris.