Gardens in the Dunes

Praise for
Gardens in the Dunes

“Silko has crafted a dreamlike tale out of one of the ugliest realities in American history.”

—Nadya Labi,
Time

“The historical, geographical, and emotional scope of this sprawling novel is breathtaking. Silko tells and retells the stories of multicultural America and weaves them into the ‘master' narrative of American history.”

—Therese Stanton,
Ms.

“A tender, evocative tale.”

—Philip Connors,
Newsday

“You can depend on Leslie Marmon Silko to seduce and captivate you with her considerable literary powers. Her dreamlike narratives deliver amazing truths. With
Gardens in the Dunes
, Silko has crafted a book about faith in the old ways, in the natural ways of life, about the significance of a family and a girl's indomitable spirit.”

—Alexs Pate,
Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Silko writes descriptions as lush as rose petals. A cosmopolitan, spellbinding narrative.”

—Denise Low,
The Kansas City Star

“Silko's appeal is her ability to transcend with her story the obvious ethnic, feminist, and ecological messages so deeply embedded in her material. . . . [Her] fiction is rooted in the real world and conveys the eternal messages of story land: love won and lost, separation and reunion, a child's growth and arrival into adulthood.”

—David A. Walton,
San Jose Mercury News

“Silko treats her characters, even the flawed ones, with love and understanding in this beautifully written, subtle novel.”

—Michael Castro,
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“
Gardens in the Dunes
is a richly written story with carefully and minutely drawn characters. Silko shows herself to be a master of thorough, well-written literary fiction.”

—Kathleen Hipson,
The Tampa Tribune-Times

“An ambitious thoughtful tale with lasting resonance.”

—Lisa Murray,
Virginia Beach Portfolio

“This is a book to read slowly, to savor the language, to mull over the questions Silko raised about the white world, about what is ‘wild' and what is ‘civilized,' what is moral and what is immoral.”

—Dorothy Doyle,
Crosswinds Weekly

“I just read
Gardens in the Dunes
and I think it's absolutely brilliant. In fact I think it's a little masterpiece.”

—Larry McMurtry

“Drenched with atmosphere, lush with descriptions of vividly detailed gardens, and saturated with dream imagery, this dense and sprawling account of culture clash, racism, budding feminism and faith . . . is a fluidly written and engaging historical saga.”

—Ann Collette,
Book

“Silko's integration of glorious details into her many vivid settings and intense characters is a triumph of the storyteller's art, which this gifted and magical novelist has never demonstrated more satisfyingly than she does here.”

—Publishers Weekly
, starred review

“Given that Silko is less a novelist than a lyrical observer and celebrant of Native-American life, this daunting fiction is . . . both a thoughtful exploration of the incompatibility of dissimilar traditions and an absorbing reading experience.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Silko has produced a work that touches on several cultures, belief systems, and issues . . . exhibits an amazing fluency.”

—Library Journal

“This is an intricate, mesmerizing, and phantasmagorical tale, rooted in Silko's passionate involvement in history . . . and [an] astoundingly fertile imagination.”

—Booklist

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

Part Ten

Reading Group Guide

Discussion Points

Author's Note on
Gardens in the Dunes

Special thanks to:

Robert and Caz, for all the love and patience

Larry McMurtry, for all the books and encouragement

Laura Coltelli, for the gardens and all the postcards

For Wendy and Gigi

S
ISTER
S
ALT
called her to come outside. The rain smelled heavenly. All over the sand dunes, datura blossoms round and white as moons breathed their fragrance of magic. Indigo came up from the pit house into the heat; the ground under her bare feet was still warm, but the rain in the breeze felt cool—so cool—and refreshing on her face. She took a deep breath and ran up the dune, where Sister Salt was naked in the rain. She pulled the ragged sack over her head and felt the rain and wind so cool, so fragrant all over her body. Off in the distance there was a faint rumble of thunder, and the wind stirred; the raindrops were larger now. She tilted back her head and opened her mouth wide the way Sister Salt did. The rain she swallowed tasted like the wind. She ran, leaped in the air, and rolled on the warm sand over and over, it was so wonderful. She took handfuls of sand and poured them over her legs and over her stomach and shoulders—the raindrops were cold now and the warmth of the sand felt delicious. Sister Salt laughed wildly as she came rolling down from the highest point of the dune, so Indigo ran after her and leaped and rolled too, her eyes closed tight against the sand. Over and over down-down-down effortlessly, the ease of the motion and the sensation of the warm sand and the cool rain were intoxicating. Indigo squealed with laughter as she rolled into Sister Salt, who was helpless with laughter, and they laughed and laughed and rolled around, one girl on top of the other. They lay side by side with their mouths open and swallowed raindrops until the storm passed. All around them were old garden terraces in the dunes.

Sister Salt remembers everything. The morning the soldiers and the Indian police came to arrest the Messiah, Grandma Fleet told Sister Salt to run. Run! Run get your little sister! You girls go back to the old gardens! Sister Salt was big and strong. She carried Indigo piggyback whenever her
little sister got tired. Indigo doesn't remember much about that morning except for the shouts and screams.

Indigo remembers they used to sell baskets at the depot in Needles while their mother washed linens in tubs of boiling water behind the hotel; Grandma Fleet searched the town dump for valuables and discarded seeds. They slept in a lean-to made of old crates and tin, near the river. They learned to talk English while selling baskets to tourists at the train station.

Now, at the old gardens, the girls live alone in Grandma Fleet's house. Grandma had returned a day after they did. Grandma saw Mama escape and run north with the other dancers ahead of the Indian police, who grabbed all the Indians they could, while the soldiers arrested the white people, mostly Mormons, who came to dance for the Messiah. The United States government was afraid of the Messiah's dance.

The deep sand held precious moisture from runoff that nurtured the plants; along the sandstone cliffs above the dunes, dampness seeped out of cracks in the cliff. Amaranth grew profusely at the foot of the dunes. When there was nothing else to eat, there was amaranth; every morning and every night Sister Salt boiled up amaranth greens just like Grandma Fleet taught her.

Later, as the amaranth went to seed, they took turns kneeling at the grinding stone, then Sister Salt made tortillas. They shared part of a honeycomb Indigo spotted in a crevice not far from the spring. Indigo cried when the bees stung her but Sister Salt only rubbed her swollen arms and legs vigorously and laughed, saying it was good medicine—a good cure for anything that might ail you. Grandma Fleet taught Sister Salt and Indigo all about such things.