LeAnne Howe: A Review

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    LeAnne Howe was born and raised in Oklahoma, with roots placed within the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. She is a novelist, playwrite, and poet. LeAnne is also a winner of multiple awards including but not limited to the Oklahoma Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award, a 2012 United States Artist Ford Fellowship, the inaugural 2014 MLA Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, and the Western Literature Association 2015 Distinguished Achievement Award (2). These awards relating to her novels, do not begin to touch her achievements as a poet or playwrite. All of her work has eventually landed her jobs at universities like the University of Minnesota, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and University of Georgia (3).  

       One of LeAnne's novels is titled Savage Conversations and is a work that covers the Native American genocide. The novel includes three main characters; Mary Todd Lincoln, the Savage Indian, and the rope. The characters themselves represent both a bigger picture showing Howe's work through symbolism. Mary Todd Lincoln is the wife of Abraham Lincoln; within the text she is struggling with the assassination of her husband. The Savage Indian represents the history of the Native American genocide as a whole. Which leads to the rope showing or symbolizing the connection between the two characters. How both the Native Americans and a widow can relate in terms of their experience with loss and so on. 

    A review from The Carolina Quarterly, titled Savage Conversations, was written by Karah Mitchell states that any " reader quickly realizes that Mary welcomes victimization in order to draw more attention to herself" (4). I believe this is influential as Mary's role within the novel plays into more than just her widow status. 

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    Within another review by the Kenyon Review, titled Forms of Reckoning: A Review of LeAnne Howe's Savage Conversations, Howe's work was said to "challenge narratives of innocence surrounding white female fragility," which I believe to be a great way to challenge closed-minded viewpoints and give readers a chance to open up to something they've never seen or heard of before (1). 

    A third review by Full Stop, titled  Savage Conversations - LeAnne Howe, which was written by Franziska Lamprecht, also piqued my interest as the review suggests Howe challenges literature as a whole. It reads "she uses words that describe hate, brutality, tenderness, compassion, rage, calculation, rationality, absurdity, and logic, in the transactions between [the Savage Indian and Mary Todd Lincoln]" (5).

    With that, I believe LeAnne Howe to be an excellent writer as her work in literature reaches all forms. I have personally added Savage Conversations to my reading lists and for her other works in poetry, like 1918, I have chosen to read in my free time this semester. Her sheer ability to introduce issues within the Native American culture is astonishing as she is direct and cuts blatantly to the chase. I can admire that in a writer as these issues are ones to be addressed both in the present and in the past as they are a part of Native American history. And, I believe LeAnne does a remarkable job showcasing the history of the Native American people. 

Citations

(1) “Forms of Reckoning: A Review of Leanne Howe’s Savage Conversations.” The    Kenyon Review, 13 Mar. 2020, kenyonreview.org/reviews/savage-conversations-by-leanne-howe-738439/.

(2) “Leanne Howe.” Poetry Center, 17 Sept. 2020, poetry.arizona.edu/people/leanne-howe#:~:text=Howe%20is%20the%20author%20of,Artists%20Ford%20Fellowship%2C%20among%20others.

(3) “Leanne Howe.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/leanne-howe. Accessed 4 Mar. 2024.

(4) Murphy, Benjamin. “Savage Conversations: A Review.” Carolina Quarterly, thecarolinaquarterly.com/2019/04/savage-conversations-a-review/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024. 

(5) “Savage Conversations – Leanne Howe.”  | Full Stop, www.full-stop.net/2019/06/04/reviews/franziska-lamprecht/savage-conversations-leanne-howe/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.