A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
By Michael Dorris

There's something about Michael Dorris's writing that I found shockingly sensitive to the female voice. He tells the story of a single family from the points of view of three women. The book starts with the teenage Rayona. Then you cut to her mother's perspective, and you realize that a child can look at her parent's actions and think, "You were so cruel," but we very rarely experience our parent's interpretation of that same time. My mom and I can do that now. As I'm sitting here, I'm moving my daughter to New York at the exact same age that I was when I moved to New York. Now I can ask my mother, "Why did we move?" As a child, I was given reasons, but they were probably reasons to make it easier, not necessarily the truth. I'm very conscious of wanting to be honest with my daughter about my motives.