Thunder Song

Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence

"Blending beautiful family history with her own personal memories, LaPointe’s writing is a ballad against amnesia, and a call to action for healing, for decolonization, for hope." —Elle

The author of the award-winning memoir Red Paint returns with a razor-sharp, clear-eyed collection of essays on what it means to be a proudly queer indigenous woman in the United States today.

Drawing on a rich family archive as well as the anthropological work of her late great-grandmother, Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe explores themes ranging from indigenous identity and stereotypes to cultural displacement and environmental degradation to understand what our experiences teach us about the power of community, commitment, and conscientious honesty.

Unapologetically punk, the essays in Thunder Song segue from the miraculous to the mundane, from the spiritual to the physical, as they examine the role of art—in particular music—and community in helping a new generation of indigenous people claim the strength of their heritage while defining their own path in the contemporary world.