Coyote Speaks

A fugitive from the law for over forty years, Coyote Viejo tells the story of his escape from oppressive foster care on an Arizona chicken ranch and the success that followed as a high school wrestler and cross country runner, culminating with graduation from a fine university in Pennsylvania and his dream job as a high school coach and teacher, far distant in every way from the Indian reservation of his birth. A star-crossed love affair brings him down and exposes the dark secrets of his childhood, taking him back to exorcise his demons and confront his childhood tormentor. Then he must run again. Coyote escapes to an Indian reservation in Southern California, creates a new identity and rebuilds his life, gradually easing his fear of being discovered. After many years, however, Coyote's path crosses that of a young woman named Sarah Whitewater, a graduate student in Indian Studies at the University of Arizona who tracks him down and exposes his secrets. Her dissertation research is not her only reason to be interested in Coyote's story, however; their lives intertwine in complex ways and she has a deeper understanding of Coyote's history than he has himself. Sarah's unexpected revelations lift a great burden from the shoulders of Coyote as an old man, freeing him to speak as he has never spoken before to anyone. In the book COYOTE SPEAKS his full story is revealed. Although this novel tells the story of one contemporary Native American man, it follows the classical tradition of novels portraying the struggle to overcome adversity, exposing human frailty and human virtue, and in that sense it transcends the limits of race, gender, place and time. Sex, violence and addiction are inescapable elements of human life, not excluded from Coyote's story. The protagonist is an American Indian/Native American by both birth and death, but he grows up in an environment surrounded by people of every racial and ethnic variety in America, so this is a story about one individual American, not a story about Native Americans more broadly. As a boy and young man Kit Coyote is deeply committed to the sports of wrestling and cross country running, where his talents and opportunities lie, with consequences that liberate and elevate his adult life. These experiences are important elements of Coyote's story, described here in some depth, but the message goes beyond this one young man and his particular choice of sports. Many young men and women in America have found athletic competition to be their channel of escape from poverty and family adversities, and this is their story too. Every novel can be read at two levels, and so it is for COYOTE SPEAKS: Cross Country Run.

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