The Removed

This story about the far reaching effects of a murdered child and ethnic cleansing is told from multiple perspectives. It is a testament to Mr. Hobson’s skill that whatever point of view the story was being told from was obvious in the telling, the differences in character perception and behavior. Multiple perspectives can often be confusing. Each of the characters telling the story is different, just as the way every person deals with grief and loss and the aftermath of being raised by parents in grief, experiencing loss. The murder of a Cherokee boy by someone who is supposed to uphold the law and who never faces consequences or tried to make amends would devastate any family. This trauma is compounded by the historical trauma of an entire tribe that experienced genocide and ethnic cleansing and was illegally removed by the people who should have upheld the law. I, particularly, liked the portrayal of the character Sonja, a woman who does not feel incomplete without a male partner, who enjoys her solitude in a way women are rarely allowed to in society or on the page.

This novel combines Cherokee folklore, history and contemporary issues facing a Native American family. It has been 15 years since Rae-Rae, Maria and Ernest’s son has been killed in a police shooting. The police shot the wrong man but, as often happens, they chose to shoot the alleged culprit with the darker skin.

Every year since Rae Rae’s death, Maria has a bonfire to celebrate family love and Rae Rae’s memory. The family is hovering on the brink of despair. Ernest has Alzheimer’s and is quickly descending into a dark place where his memory has no purchase. Rae Rae’s younger brother Edgar is a prisoner of drug addiction and finds himself stuck in a place known as The Darkening Land. His girlfriend has left him and he has not seen his them in months. He is not sure whether he will attend the bonfire. Sonja is 37 and still single. From time to time, she finds herself fixated on certain men but she finds none of them good enough for a sustained relationship.

The novel ingeniously melds the present, past, oral history, and mythology of the Cherokee people with their current isolation and poverty on their reservation. I found the timeline difficult to follow in the beginning but it merged together as the book progressed. In a sense, it is a novel of magical realism that borrows from other genres to make a beautiful sculpture of a people, place and land in the present and from the past.

Hobson is a profoundly gifted writer! This book reads like an elder telling their story, smooth, melodic, and mesmerizing!

I am sure that I did not understand or appreciate many of the subtleties contained in this book, but I strongly felt their presence.

Short and spooky. You too may be haunted by the end. A showcase of a family’s journey through life, death, and everything beyond and between.

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