"We Think in Terms of What Is Fair": Justice versus "Just Compensation" in Elizabeth Cook-Lynn's "From the River's Edge"

Abstract

_C ompared to the phenomenal economic and critical success of the first novels of writers such as Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie, the reception of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn's first novel among the nonIndian literati seems lukewarm, at best. From the Rivers Edge (1991) did rate a review in the New York Times, but the reviewer, Robert Houston, 3 found the novel excessively didactic and wrote that it is heavily flawed by inappropriate and pedantic narrative voice, . . . telling : instead of showing.' This essay begins with a partial reading of CookLynn's novel, interwoven with her critical articulations of how she beo lieves indigenous literatures need to be read; continues with a summary of the historical revisions that produced the alleged Sioux victory in 3 165 United States v. Sioux Nation (1980);2 returns to Cook-Lynn's novel to consider its critique of paternalism, which informs the so-called legal a victory; and finally reconsiders the struggle for the Black Hills in light v of this critique. Implicit in this essay is an attempt to renegotiate the aesthetic expectations assumed in Houston's criticism. The search for particular forms of artistry in fiction conceals the politics of art and denigrates