Reviews
                            From Booklist , February 15, 1996
                            Silko's concise essays are like songs; their harmonies are autobiographical, their melodies topical. The source of their
                            understated emotional timbre is a carefully controlled blend of pride in Pueblo heritage and anger over the
                            perpetuation of injustice against Native Americans. Although these low-key song-essays are free of fancy
                            modulations and theatrics, they're rich in story and observation. Silko, whose mixed Laguna and white heritage has
                            made her exceptionally sensitive to issues of race, weaves episodes from her life into musings on the inclusiveness of
                            the ancient Pueblo vision, how integral place is to the Pueblo ethos and sense of identity, and how stories are a
                            vibrant part of everyday Pueblo life, establishing and preserving a web of meaning, memory, and knowledge. In her
                            arresting title essay, Silko contrasts Native American and European American standards of feminine beauty, then
                            introduces the heroic figure of Yellow Woman, whose strength, courage, and "vibrant sexuality" were boons to her
                            people. Silko's insights fill our minds like sun warms rock, or a quiet rain saturates dry ground. Donna Seaman
                            Copyright© 1996, American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or
                            unavailable edition of this title.

                            From Kirkus Reviews , January 1, 1996
                            In these previously published essays and stories centered on the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest, Silko (Almanac of
                            the Dead, 1991) weaves together autobiographical material with current and ancient Native American tales. She also
                            blasts a broad array of individuals, professions, and government bodies with often unsubstantiated accusations, and
                            plays fast and loose with matters of science and history. Emphasizing the importance of storytelling as unifier and
                            guidepost in the Pueblo culture, Silko is at her best when recounting stories that demonstrate the strong spiritual
                            relationship of the people to the land's animate and inanimate objects, as in the tale of a drowned child whose clothes
                            magically turn into desert butterflies or in the story of Yellow Woman, who agrees to go away with a buffalo spirit so
                            that her tribe will always have food. Silko also collects modern tribal tales: There is, for instance, a story about a
                            giant stone snake that is discovered at the site of a uranium mine, auguring, Silko suggests, the return of the tribal
                            peoples to their ancestral lands. Elsewhere, Silko rails against the historic confiscation of tribal lands and to some
                            extent details the continuing political struggle for the return of these lands and land-use rights. While her sincerity is
                            unquestioned, and though she has a twice-told run-in with INS agents, readers may become impatient with the barbs
                            tossed without elaboration at anthropologists and archaeologists, and with blanket assertions about ``greedy elected
                            officials'' or the existence of a ``police state'' in the Southwest run by the Border Patrol. At best, her evidence for
                            these charges is anecdotal and circumstantial. One wishes Silko had confined this volume to storytelling and
                            remembrances of her life and her ancestors' lives; the contribution she is capable of bringing to the reader's
                            appreciation of the Pueblo culture is diluted by unsupportable and tired diatribe. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus
                            Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
 
 

Reviews
  Amazon.com
                            In 1900 the West was still wild. Anglo-Americans were tearing up the countryside in the name of progress, and pity
                            the Indians who stood in the way. To this canvas Leslie Marmon Silko, author of such well-received novels as Almanac
                            of the Dead and Ceremony, brings her brush. Gardens in the Dunes begins and ends at a hidden garden near the
                            Colorado River on the California-Arizona border. But Silko covers ground that includes the early stages of women's
                            rights, emerging female sexuality, the rape of the Amazon, early quack medicine, Gnostic mysteries, Celtic magic, and
                            flower husbandry. Her palette has many colors, but everywhere the garden is a central theme.

                            Grandmother Fleet, one of the few remaining Sand Lizard Indians, tends a traditional desert garden while teaching the
                            old ways to her granddaughters Sister Salt and Indigo. At a time of crushing hopelessness, Wovoka's Ghost Dance
                            messianic movement appears, drawing in the girls and Grandmother Fleet:

                                  While the others danced with eyes focussed on the fire, Indigo watched the weird shadows play on the
                                  hillsides, so she was one of the first to see the Messiah and his family as they stepped out of darkness
                                  into the glow of swirling snowflakes. How their white robes shined!

                            Indigo is also one of the first to sense the approach of soldiers and Indian police bent on breaking up the gathering.
                            The action then moves her from the secret garden and small family to an Indian school in Riverside. She eventually
                            flees the school and ends up traveling through Europe with an aristocratic Victorian family, as companion to an
                            unmarried woman. Despite her many adventures and her exposure to a life of privilege and luxury, Indigo never loses
                            her affinity for the traditions of her own people. Silko uses this novel to explore contrasts between Native American
                            and European customs and morals--with white culture often coming up short. On occasion this ambitious novel strays
                            into the political proper, but there's no denying the sheer force of Silko's prose and the sweep of her story. Gardens
                            in the Dunes offers both a vivid portrait of 19th-century Native American life and a provocative exploration of
                            disparate cultures' relationships to the world around them --Schuyler Engle