Lone Dog Road is one of the loveliest books I’ve read. I read the beautifully narrated audio version of this story about Levi, aged eleven and Reuben, aged six who are forced to run from their home when the government agent who grabs children to send them to the Indian boarding school fixes his eye on Reuben. It is 1950. Two Fingers, the agent, is half Lakota, half white. He is a mean, heartless man and when he comes to the home where the boys live with their mother and great-grandfather live, he gets physical and breaks their great-grandfathers pipe (channunpa). Two fingers even arrests their great-grandfather to further pressure the family to give up Reuben. The family protests that Reuben is “wrong-headed” and cannot survive in the boarding school. Levi can and does. Their grim, hard to like and hard to see as nurturing mother sends the boys off to jump a freight train. She gives Levi instructions to go where no one could expect to find them. She emphasizes that Reuben’s safety and wellbeing is in Levi’s hands. A huge responsibility.. The publisher lets out Levi’s secret that he has decided to travel with Reuben to the pipestone mines in Minnesota to get the material needed to replace his grandfathers channunpa. Meanwhile, their mother and great-grandfather decide to trust and send Two Finger’s very regretful new assistant out to find the boys.
Two little boys find love and help in so many unexpected ways, first with a white man, Carl-Martin, and his indigenous wife Lillie, along with a really fun character, their old dog who brings smiles off and on throughout the book. They tease out the boys plan and send them for guidance to Lillie’s best friend, an elderly indigenous woman who understands and has lived the old ways more than Lillie did growing up. She partly helps them figure out whether to go on by using a turtle. Turtles happen to be my personal totem and they ended up playing a huge role in the rest of the story, which was moving and mystical in equal measure.
As they continue their treacherous journey, the boys also meet Brother Benjamin, the first Black man they have ever seen. We learn that Reuben’s gift for almost total recall extends to Brother Benjamin’s way of earning his living. Another sweet, sweet part of this story. It’s not that Nerburn makes this look all easy and only good things happen. This is a scary and challenging journey for the boys and having met them, their helpers become deeply worried about their welfare and whether they will make it. As well they should….. Yet, over and over kindness is there, as if a circle of light surrounds them.
Lone Dog Road is a story with tremendous heart, with much to tell us of the old ways, with conviction that those who have lost their way can find it again. All without seeming sappy, unbelievable or shallow. It is in fact as deep as Anne Frank saying, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart … I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”
This novel is one that should become a classic. Totally moving, absorbing and hopeful.
They Called me Bookworm 