| A Council of Dolls | |
| Author: | Mona Susan Power |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Publisher: | Mariner Books imprint of HarperCollins |
| Pub Date: | 8 August 2023 |
| Media Type: | Printed novel |
| Pages: | 308 |
| Awards: | Minnesota Book Awards |
| Isbn: | 9780063281097 |
| Isbn Note: | hardcover |
| Oclc: | 1340038999 |
| Dewey: | 813/54-dc23/eng/20220808 |
| Congress: | PS3566.083578 C68 2023 |
A Council of Dolls is a 2023 historical fiction novel about multiple generations of Yanktonai Dakota women grappling with the effects of settler colonialism, told partially through the point of view of their dolls. The novel is by Mona Susan Power (Standing Rock Sioux), PEN Award-winning author of several works related to Native identity, such as The Grass Dancer.[1] The book was released through Mariner Books August 2023. A Council of Dolls was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction.[2] [3]
Three generations of Dakota girls and their dolls live through family and societal change. The girls and dolls can talk to each other, and the dolls have powers to help the girls through the tragedies they face.[4]
Author Mona Susan Power was guided by her family's own history with unwelcome government intervention into Native society and multigenerational experiences with Indian boarding schools. The novel is semi-autobiographical, with the characters and story based on herself, her own family members, and their family history. The character of Lillian is based on her mother, activist Susan Kelly Power, one of the founders of the American Indian Center in Chicago, Illinois. While writing another novel in 2014 entitled Harvard Indian Seance at Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast, Power felt compelled to tell the story of boarding school survivors. Weeks later, international news broke about child burials at Canadian boarding schools, which she says explained her need to tell boarding school stories. Power wrote about several generations of the family because she wanted readers to sympathize with the affects of their intergenerational trauma, rather than condemn them.[5] For Writer's Digest she explained: "My concern that the mother character will be judged and disliked for her woundedness, the dangers it creates, leads me to include two more generations of girls and their stories. As I write, I feel ancestors crowding into the small room. This is their story, too. I believe they support my efforts, cheer me on, as if my healing the past will help them set down their own sadness and regret."[6] At times writing the novel was so emotional she would cry.[7] [8] [9]
The novel was written during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The first draft was completed in four months following recovery from a broken arm.[10] [11] She was completing copy-edits in 2022.[12]
A Council of Dolls was an expansion of an earlier story about dolls published in the Missouri Review called Naming Ceremony.[13] [10] Naming Ceremony was runner-up for the 2020 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize.[14] [15]
Power held a launch party on publication day 8 August 2023 at the Birchbark Books event space Birchbark Bizhew in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[16]
Kirkus Reviews panned the book as "occasionally moving" but "steeped a little bit too long in sentimentality."[17] A starred review by Publishers Weekly calls it a "story of survival that shines brightly," and says Power reveals a "deep knowledge of Indigenous history" and the book is a "keen" and "wrenching" depiction of boarding schools.[18] Booklist describes the novel as a "heart-wrenching account of inherited trauma and resilience" that "is perceptively told."[19]
Dakota author Gabrielle Tateyuskanskan of the Oceti Sakowin Writers Society praised A Council of Dolls for bringing to light the experiences of boarding school survivors and their descendants, and relates events in the book to recorded abuses at boarding schools raised in legal cases and academic studies.[20]
The novel was featured in New Yorkers Best Books of 2023. Good Housekeeping recommended it as part of their GH Book Club, which features "feel-good reads."[21] [22] People and Washington Post also highlighted the novel.[23] [24]
A Council of Dolls was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, and won the 2024 Minnesota Book Awards category for novels.[25] [26] [27] [28] [29] The novel is a finalist in the fiction, indigenous writer, and woman writer categories for the High Plains Book Awards, which honors books about the High Plains region in the U.S. and Canada.[30] [31]
A Council of Dolls is also available as an audiobook from HarperAudio, read by actress Isabella Star LaBlanc (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), and in ebook and large print format .[4]
Minnesota State Services for the Blind read the book live on-air in a twelve part broadcast series starting May 28, 2024, part of their Radio Talking Book program, which communicates publications such as newspapers, magazines, and popular books via radio 24-hours a day.[32]