What do you think?
Rate this book
The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage
Oona's blood is a river delta blending east and west, her hair red as Tennessee clay, her heart tangled as the wild lands she maps. By tracing rivers in ink on paper, Oona pins the land down to one reality and betrays her people. Can she escape the bonds of gold and blood and bone that tie her to the Imperial American River Company?
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
30 pages, ebook
First published December 14, 2016
About the author
Alix E. Harrow
42 books20.7k followersa former academic, adjunct, cashier, blueberry-harvester, and kentuckian, alix e. harrow is now a full-time writer living in virginia with her husband and their semi-feral kids.
she is the hugo award-winning and nyt-bestselling author of THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY (2019), THE ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES (2020), a duology of fairytale novellas (A SPINDLE SPLINTERED and A MIRROR MENDED), and various short fiction. her next book, STARLING HOUSE will be out on october 3rd, 2023!
her writing is represented by kate mckean at howard morhaim literary agency.
newsletter: https://writtenworld.substack.com/
email: alixeharrow at gmail.com
insta: alix.e.harrow
she is the hugo award-winning and nyt-bestselling author of THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY (2019), THE ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES (2020), a duology of fairytale novellas (A SPINDLE SPLINTERED and A MIRROR MENDED), and various short fiction. her next book, STARLING HOUSE will be out on october 3rd, 2023!
her writing is represented by kate mckean at howard morhaim literary agency.
newsletter: https://writtenworld.substack.com/
email: alixeharrow at gmail.com
insta: alix.e.harrow
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 182 reviews
April 3, 2019
One word: magical
In a semi-historical, semi-alternate-universe North American setting, the land itself is resisting colonization. The land is wild, untamed, alive. It has many faces, many fluid shapes. Just like a map, it can wriggle, twist, curve, tear itself apart and stick its own pieces together at unexpected places, the drawn lines fading away or blurring. Only mapmakers can hold it still, so that colonizers can settle it and keep it fixed.
Atmospheric, imaginative, with clever pseudo-historical references and vivid characters. The baddie was a bit one note, but for a short story this makes sense.
The only thing that felt a bit off was how generic the Native character was and the implication that the lines between tribes blur together, while in reality many clearly distinct cultures exist.
In a semi-historical, semi-alternate-universe North American setting, the land itself is resisting colonization. The land is wild, untamed, alive. It has many faces, many fluid shapes. Just like a map, it can wriggle, twist, curve, tear itself apart and stick its own pieces together at unexpected places, the drawn lines fading away or blurring. Only mapmakers can hold it still, so that colonizers can settle it and keep it fixed.
In our language, the word for mapmaker is also the word for traitor.
Atmospheric, imaginative, with clever pseudo-historical references and vivid characters. The baddie was a bit one note, but for a short story this makes sense.
The only thing that felt a bit off was how generic the Native character was and the implication that the lines between tribes blur together, while in reality many clearly distinct cultures exist.
May 23, 2024
‘In our language, the word for mapmaker is also the word for traitor.’
In keeping with the colonizer’s words to “tame the West,” in Alix E. Harrow’s tale they will find the West to indeed be a fierce beast resistant to their aims. A story of the American frontier as the ‘shifting land that twists beneath your feet and runs in mad paths of its own,’ is being violently corralled into borders and map lines as those who called it their ancestral home are removed or made to betray the land. Such is the case of the narrator in The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage, a woman born of two worlds who finds herself trapped in her role as mapmaker to serve the Imperial American River Company in their quest for westward expansion. Gorgeously told as Harrow’s prose snakes through imagery and emotion as awe-inspiring as the vast horizons the characters explore and the natural world comes alive as if the words themselves were roots embedding into the reader. A dark tale full of magic and menace that confronts a long, American legacy of colonial violence and corporate dehumanization, this is a tale of blackmail and servitude breeding fear and frustration but also a burning desire for freedom. But will it come at a steep cost?
‘Mapmakers don’t make the land; we only hold fast to whichever shape it gives us.’
For those who are interested, you can read this story in its entirety HERE
I’ve come to really enjoy Harrow’s poetic writing and how she can depict a scene in words that reads in your mind as such lush imagery full of sharp, bold colors that fully immerses you in her stories. I also appreciated her use of footnotes here, which ground the story in the idea that it is ta historical account and I found it serves the story better than her use of them in Starling House where it felt a bit tacked on and wasn’t utilized enough to really justify it. Harrow does excel at historical fantasy, however, and this takes a sharp look at the horrors of colonialism and the violence brought about by Westward expansion at the expense of the indigenous peoples who had already been living there. We follow the narrator in her service to the company under Mr. Clayton—‘a thuggish employee of the Imperial American River Company&mdash’—a job for which she feels makes her a traitor to her people, yet her efforts to leave are seen as traitorous and to be viewed as property by a company is to be denied your status as a person. This is only made worse by the racism against indigenous people.
‘I knew the shackles Clayton hung on my wrists were made of both fear and hope, and I knew hope was by far the heavier of the two. But knowing didn’t matter much, in the end.’
Harrow does an excellent job building frustration in the reader for the hardships faced by the narrator, such as the ways they blackmail her into submission, and the anger and pain felt by those being swept off the map in order to turn it into tidy property lines fuel the blunt criticisms of colonialism shown in the story. But the strongest aspects of the story is the love of the land, to be ‘drunk on the shifting shapes of the horizon,’ to have ancestral connections and deep cultural connections. The removal from it and dismissal of their practices is deeply felt and pulls towards a satisfying conclusion where one can be literally ‘swallowed up by the ravenous border.’ It gets pretty great.
Alix E. Harrow’s The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage is an interesting and brutal little tale. It does come from 2016 at a time where, in the efforts to give more space to diverse characters, a lot of white writers would write cultural stories and there has since been a lot of debate over that so keep that in mind while reading. It seems written in a very respectful manner and the anti-colonialism message is quite powerful, though it does sort of imply a homogeneity between tribes that neglects there were cultural differences in an effort to make a rather us vs them atmosphere for the story and I can see how that is wide open for criticisms from those of that ancestry. Still, Harrow’s writing is quite beautiful and this was a sharp little story.
4/5
‘[I]f mapmaking is magic, it’s only the magic of knowing—knowing the land and its hundred faces so well you carry the shape of them in your marrow.’
In keeping with the colonizer’s words to “tame the West,” in Alix E. Harrow’s tale they will find the West to indeed be a fierce beast resistant to their aims. A story of the American frontier as the ‘shifting land that twists beneath your feet and runs in mad paths of its own,’ is being violently corralled into borders and map lines as those who called it their ancestral home are removed or made to betray the land. Such is the case of the narrator in The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage, a woman born of two worlds who finds herself trapped in her role as mapmaker to serve the Imperial American River Company in their quest for westward expansion. Gorgeously told as Harrow’s prose snakes through imagery and emotion as awe-inspiring as the vast horizons the characters explore and the natural world comes alive as if the words themselves were roots embedding into the reader. A dark tale full of magic and menace that confronts a long, American legacy of colonial violence and corporate dehumanization, this is a tale of blackmail and servitude breeding fear and frustration but also a burning desire for freedom. But will it come at a steep cost?
‘Mapmakers don’t make the land; we only hold fast to whichever shape it gives us.’
For those who are interested, you can read this story in its entirety HERE
I’ve come to really enjoy Harrow’s poetic writing and how she can depict a scene in words that reads in your mind as such lush imagery full of sharp, bold colors that fully immerses you in her stories. I also appreciated her use of footnotes here, which ground the story in the idea that it is ta historical account and I found it serves the story better than her use of them in Starling House where it felt a bit tacked on and wasn’t utilized enough to really justify it. Harrow does excel at historical fantasy, however, and this takes a sharp look at the horrors of colonialism and the violence brought about by Westward expansion at the expense of the indigenous peoples who had already been living there. We follow the narrator in her service to the company under Mr. Clayton—‘a thuggish employee of the Imperial American River Company&mdash’—a job for which she feels makes her a traitor to her people, yet her efforts to leave are seen as traitorous and to be viewed as property by a company is to be denied your status as a person. This is only made worse by the racism against indigenous people.
‘I knew the shackles Clayton hung on my wrists were made of both fear and hope, and I knew hope was by far the heavier of the two. But knowing didn’t matter much, in the end.’
Harrow does an excellent job building frustration in the reader for the hardships faced by the narrator, such as the ways they blackmail her into submission, and the anger and pain felt by those being swept off the map in order to turn it into tidy property lines fuel the blunt criticisms of colonialism shown in the story. But the strongest aspects of the story is the love of the land, to be ‘drunk on the shifting shapes of the horizon,’ to have ancestral connections and deep cultural connections. The removal from it and dismissal of their practices is deeply felt and pulls towards a satisfying conclusion where one can be literally ‘swallowed up by the ravenous border.’ It gets pretty great.
‘Imagine the earth you walk along is just a vast and detailed map rolled out on some surveyor’s table. Now imagine that map is torn away, whisked from beneath your feet, or perhaps all the ink simply runs together in a sudden liquid chaos of rivers and mountains and neatly labeled regions. And your eyes ache just to see it, because you believed all your life that the labels on the map were the truth, and now you see they were just thin ropes stretched over the land and easily shaken off.’
Alix E. Harrow’s The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage is an interesting and brutal little tale. It does come from 2016 at a time where, in the efforts to give more space to diverse characters, a lot of white writers would write cultural stories and there has since been a lot of debate over that so keep that in mind while reading. It seems written in a very respectful manner and the anti-colonialism message is quite powerful, though it does sort of imply a homogeneity between tribes that neglects there were cultural differences in an effort to make a rather us vs them atmosphere for the story and I can see how that is wide open for criticisms from those of that ancestry. Still, Harrow’s writing is quite beautiful and this was a sharp little story.
4/5
‘[I]f mapmaking is magic, it’s only the magic of knowing—knowing the land and its hundred faces so well you carry the shape of them in your marrow.’
May 19, 2020
Wow. This should have won things. Very powerful story of a mapmaking 'half-breed' woman and the taming of the West.
Along the lines of "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience," but better.
Does contain footnotes which I found rather distracting. Not sure what Harrow was going for with them (shreds of white legitimacy?). Since it was published in 2016, I'll blame the terrible influence of such books as Jonathan Strange.
https://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-au...
Thanks to Tadiana Night Owl for the link and rec.
Cross posted at https://wordpress.com/post/clsiewert.... because I have yet to delete a review.
Along the lines of "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience," but better.
Does contain footnotes which I found rather distracting. Not sure what Harrow was going for with them (shreds of white legitimacy?). Since it was published in 2016, I'll blame the terrible influence of such books as Jonathan Strange.
https://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-au...
Thanks to Tadiana Night Owl for the link and rec.
Cross posted at https://wordpress.com/post/clsiewert.... because I have yet to delete a review.
September 13, 2019
4.5 stars for this Tor short story, free online here at Tor.com. It's by Alix Harrow, who wrote the just-published The Ten Thousand Doors of January which is getting ALL kinds of buzz, and also A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies, which just won the Hugo award. She has the chops!
Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
In the early 1900’s, the land west of the Mississippi River is a place where the land is fey, constantly shifting and changing, evading the Easterners’ efforts to conquer and settle the land. Oona, a half-breed Amerind, is one of the few people who have the ability to be a “mapmaker,” forcing the land to hold to a particular shape and keep it.
“The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage” is a beautifully written and richly imagined story, exploring Oona’s conflicting emotions and the difficulties of her life in an alternative version of U.S. history. The story is given additional heft and humor by several quasi-scholarly footnotes, discussing, for example, Sir Marcus Polo and his memoir of his exploration of the western frontier in America. I liked the play on the concept of “settling” the land.
I have a couple of minor quibbles: Clayton is a cardboard villain without much depth, and I was bit distracted by the notion, mentioned in one of the footnotes but not really relevant to the story, that in this world the lines between the various Amerind tribes have blurred. But otherwise this was an excellent story, examining the darker side of manifest destiny.
Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
In the early 1900’s, the land west of the Mississippi River is a place where the land is fey, constantly shifting and changing, evading the Easterners’ efforts to conquer and settle the land. Oona, a half-breed Amerind, is one of the few people who have the ability to be a “mapmaker,” forcing the land to hold to a particular shape and keep it.
Without us, the land won’t lie still. It writhes and twists beneath their compasses, so that a crew of surveyors might make the most meticulous measurements imaginable, plotting out each hill and bluff and bend in the river, and when they return the next day everything is a mirror image of itself. Or the river splits in two and one branch wanders off into hills that shimmer slightly in the dawn, or the bluffs are now far too high to climb and must be gone around. Or the crew simply disappears and returns weeks later looking hungry and haunted.Oona works for a company of surveyors of the Imperial American River Company, who are exploring the frontier, helping them by stabilizing the land. She’s viewed as a traitor by Native Americans, despite the fact that she despises her job and especially hates the leader of the company, John Clayton. It gradually becomes apparent why Oona is forced to work for Clayton. She may be able to escape his tyranny, but freedom will carry a heavy cost.
“The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage” is a beautifully written and richly imagined story, exploring Oona’s conflicting emotions and the difficulties of her life in an alternative version of U.S. history. The story is given additional heft and humor by several quasi-scholarly footnotes, discussing, for example, Sir Marcus Polo and his memoir of his exploration of the western frontier in America. I liked the play on the concept of “settling” the land.
I have a couple of minor quibbles: Clayton is a cardboard villain without much depth, and I was bit distracted by the notion, mentioned in one of the footnotes but not really relevant to the story, that in this world the lines between the various Amerind tribes have blurred. But otherwise this was an excellent story, examining the darker side of manifest destiny.
April 29, 2021
WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
last year, amy(other amy) tipped me off to this cool thing she was doing: the short story advent calendar, where you sign up to this thingie here and you get a free story each day.
i dropped the ball and by the time i came to my senses, it had already sold out, so for december project, i'm going rogue and just reading a free online story a day of my choosing. this foolhardy endeavor is going to screw up my already-deep-in-the-weeds review backlog, so i don't think i will be reviewing each individual story "properly." i might just do a picture review or - if i am feeling wicked motivated, i will draw something, but i can't be treating each short story like a real book and spending half my day examining and dissecting it, so we'll just see what shape this project takes as we go.
and if you know of any particularly good short stories available free online, let me know! i'm no good at finding them myself unless they're on the tor.com site, and i only have enough at this stage of the game to fill half my calendar. <--- that part is no longer true, but i am still interested in getting suggestions!
DECEMBER 17
another beautiful tor short. seriously - any of you who might be reading this who haven't yet taken advantage of the stories tor puts out there for free need to start taking advantage of 'em, because while they're not all spectacular, enough of them are jaw-droppingly good that you're only hurting yourself by not rushing over there weekly to see what's new. this one even has FOOTNOTES! and it's all the things i love - densely plotted, haunting and bittersweet, beautiful imagery and just the right balance of realism and magical elements. this author has just made my watch list.
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-aut...
DECEMBER 1: FABLE - CHARLES YU
DECEMBER 2: THE REAL DEAL - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 3: THE WAYS OF WALLS AND WORDS - SABRINA VOURVOULIAS
DECEMBER 4: GHOSTS AND EMPTIES - LAUREN GROFF
DECEMBER 5: THE RETURN OF THE THIN WHITE DUKE - NEIL GAIMAN
DECEMBER 6: WHEN THE YOGURT TOOK OVER - JOHN SCALZI
DECEMBER 7: A CHRISTMAS PAGEANT - DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 8: DEEP - PHILIP PLAIT
DECEMBER 9: COOKIE JAR - STEPHEN KING
DECEMBER 10: THE STORY OF KAO YU - PETER S. BEAGLE
DECEMBER 11: THE HEEBIE-JEEBIES - ALAN BEARD
DECEMBER 12: THE TOMATO THIEF - URSULA VERNON
DECEMBER 13: THE JAWS THAT BITE, THE CLAWS THAT CATCH - SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 14: ROLLING IN THE DEEP - JULIO ALEXI GENAO
DECEMBER 15: ANTIHYPOXIANT - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 16: THE AMBUSH - DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 18: THE CHRISTMAS SHOW - PAT CADIGAN
DECEMBER 19: THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS - PAUL CORNELL
DECEMBER 20: THE TRAINS THAT CLIMB THE WINTER TREE - MICHAEL SWANWICK
DECEMBER 21: BLUE IS A DARKNESS WEAKENED BY LIGHT - SARAH MCCARRY
DECEMBER 22: WATERS OF VERSAILLES - KELLY ROBSON
DECEMBER 23: RAZORBACK - URSULA VERNON
DECEMBER 24: DIARY OF AN ASSCAN - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 25: CHANGING MEANINGS - SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 26: SHOGGOTHS IN BLOOM - ELIZABETH BEAR
DECEMBER 27: THE CARTOGRAPHY OF SUDDEN DEATH - CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
DECEMBER 28: FRIEDRICH THE SNOW MAN - LEWIS SHINER
DECEMBER 29: DRESS YOUR MARINES IN WHITE - EMMY LAYBOURNE
DECEMBER 30: AM I FREE TO GO? - KATHRYN CRAMER
DECEMBER 31: OLD DEAD FUTURES - TINA CONNOLLY
come to my blog!
last year, amy(other amy) tipped me off to this cool thing she was doing: the short story advent calendar, where you sign up to this thingie here and you get a free story each day.
i dropped the ball and by the time i came to my senses, it had already sold out, so for december project, i'm going rogue and just reading a free online story a day of my choosing. this foolhardy endeavor is going to screw up my already-deep-in-the-weeds review backlog, so i don't think i will be reviewing each individual story "properly." i might just do a picture review or - if i am feeling wicked motivated, i will draw something, but i can't be treating each short story like a real book and spending half my day examining and dissecting it, so we'll just see what shape this project takes as we go.
and if you know of any particularly good short stories available free online, let me know! i'm no good at finding them myself unless they're on the tor.com site, and i only have enough at this stage of the game to fill half my calendar. <--- that part is no longer true, but i am still interested in getting suggestions!
DECEMBER 17
I closed my eyes again, feeling the land sliding again into the place I wanted to go least in the world. There is no reasoning with it, no forcing it. Mapmakers don’t make the land; we only hold fast to whichever shape it gives us. I walked forward.
another beautiful tor short. seriously - any of you who might be reading this who haven't yet taken advantage of the stories tor puts out there for free need to start taking advantage of 'em, because while they're not all spectacular, enough of them are jaw-droppingly good that you're only hurting yourself by not rushing over there weekly to see what's new. this one even has FOOTNOTES! and it's all the things i love - densely plotted, haunting and bittersweet, beautiful imagery and just the right balance of realism and magical elements. this author has just made my watch list.
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-aut...
DECEMBER 1: FABLE - CHARLES YU
DECEMBER 2: THE REAL DEAL - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 3: THE WAYS OF WALLS AND WORDS - SABRINA VOURVOULIAS
DECEMBER 4: GHOSTS AND EMPTIES - LAUREN GROFF
DECEMBER 5: THE RETURN OF THE THIN WHITE DUKE - NEIL GAIMAN
DECEMBER 6: WHEN THE YOGURT TOOK OVER - JOHN SCALZI
DECEMBER 7: A CHRISTMAS PAGEANT - DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 8: DEEP - PHILIP PLAIT
DECEMBER 9: COOKIE JAR - STEPHEN KING
DECEMBER 10: THE STORY OF KAO YU - PETER S. BEAGLE
DECEMBER 11: THE HEEBIE-JEEBIES - ALAN BEARD
DECEMBER 12: THE TOMATO THIEF - URSULA VERNON
DECEMBER 13: THE JAWS THAT BITE, THE CLAWS THAT CATCH - SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 14: ROLLING IN THE DEEP - JULIO ALEXI GENAO
DECEMBER 15: ANTIHYPOXIANT - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 16: THE AMBUSH - DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 18: THE CHRISTMAS SHOW - PAT CADIGAN
DECEMBER 19: THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS - PAUL CORNELL
DECEMBER 20: THE TRAINS THAT CLIMB THE WINTER TREE - MICHAEL SWANWICK
DECEMBER 21: BLUE IS A DARKNESS WEAKENED BY LIGHT - SARAH MCCARRY
DECEMBER 22: WATERS OF VERSAILLES - KELLY ROBSON
DECEMBER 23: RAZORBACK - URSULA VERNON
DECEMBER 24: DIARY OF AN ASSCAN - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 25: CHANGING MEANINGS - SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 26: SHOGGOTHS IN BLOOM - ELIZABETH BEAR
DECEMBER 27: THE CARTOGRAPHY OF SUDDEN DEATH - CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
DECEMBER 28: FRIEDRICH THE SNOW MAN - LEWIS SHINER
DECEMBER 29: DRESS YOUR MARINES IN WHITE - EMMY LAYBOURNE
DECEMBER 30: AM I FREE TO GO? - KATHRYN CRAMER
DECEMBER 31: OLD DEAD FUTURES - TINA CONNOLLY
come to my blog!
June 16, 2024
Maps have a magical aura. Even as a child, a book that started with a map thrilled me before I read a word.
Maybe that’s one reason I chose to study geography at university. In lectures, when I doodled, Dave drew detailed and accurate maps of our unfamiliar city. From memory. As we learned about the capricious movements of the earth, both natural and man-made, he fixed the city’s layout in pen and ink.
This is Oona’s story, and it opens thus:
“Oona’s blood is a river delta blending east and west, her hair red as Tennessee clay, her heart tangled as the wild lands she maps. By tracing rivers in ink on paper, Oona pins the land down to one reality and betrays her people.”
Image: Map of the Mississippi delta from 1874, slightly before Oona’s time (Source)
She’s a mixed-race teenager, who was born to an Amerind woman on the banks of the Mississippi in 1892. Now orphaned, living with her sickly younger half-brother, and aunts who dislike her, she becomes a guide and mapmaker for the river company, “clawing westward with hungry hands”.
“In our language, the word for ‘mapmaker’ is also the word for ‘traitor’.”
The story is her account of that time, complete with footnotes for verisimilitude, which contrast with the mythic tone and air of foreboding, with shadows sliding eerily, and red columbines flowering out of season.
“They need mapmakers, you see—a few traitors like myself to hold the land still.”
She may not be a slave, but she might almost as well be.
Image: “Bones hung from the black branches like skeletal chimes, clacking”. Picture by Ashley Mackenzie (Source)
Eventually, she is given the greatest gift:
“And, in the end, to be granted a lonely grace. To be freed, and know the cost of it.”
Quotes
• “The fey, shifting land that twists beneath your feet and runs in mad paths of its own devising, which might lead you away and never let you out again.”
• “Without us, the land won’t lie still. It writhes and twists beneath their compasses, so that a crew of surveyors might make the most meticulous measurements imaginable, plotting out each hill and bluff and bend in the river, and when they return the next day everything is a mirror image of itself. Or the river splits in two and one branch wanders off into hills that shimmer slightly in the dawn, or the bluffs are now far too high to climb and must be gone around. Or the crew simply disappears and returns weeks later looking hungry and haunted.”
• “Mapmaking is like tackling your dearest childhood friend and pinning her to the ground while men in linen suits draw red-and-black lines across her flesh.”
Image: “A shaded glade filled with red columbines blooming carelessly out of season.” (Source)
White gaze
When I read this, I assumed Harrow was at least partly native American, but learned from Steven’s excellent review that she’s not. She wrote this in 2016, and in answer to a question about another work on her GR page, she says she is white, and her work is not “Own Voices”. I still think it’s a beautifully told story, but I’m not native American.
See also
• You can read this story HERE.
• I reviewed Harrow’s library-themed story, A Witch’s Guide to Escape, HERE.
• Rief Larsen’s Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet, is a rather different take on a child obsessed with map-making. See my review HERE.
• The arrival of uninvited outsiders, plus a hired map-maker, change a remote English village forever. See my review of Jim Crace's Harvest HERE.
Maybe that’s one reason I chose to study geography at university. In lectures, when I doodled, Dave drew detailed and accurate maps of our unfamiliar city. From memory. As we learned about the capricious movements of the earth, both natural and man-made, he fixed the city’s layout in pen and ink.
This is Oona’s story, and it opens thus:
“Oona’s blood is a river delta blending east and west, her hair red as Tennessee clay, her heart tangled as the wild lands she maps. By tracing rivers in ink on paper, Oona pins the land down to one reality and betrays her people.”
Image: Map of the Mississippi delta from 1874, slightly before Oona’s time (Source)
She’s a mixed-race teenager, who was born to an Amerind woman on the banks of the Mississippi in 1892. Now orphaned, living with her sickly younger half-brother, and aunts who dislike her, she becomes a guide and mapmaker for the river company, “clawing westward with hungry hands”.
“In our language, the word for ‘mapmaker’ is also the word for ‘traitor’.”
The story is her account of that time, complete with footnotes for verisimilitude, which contrast with the mythic tone and air of foreboding, with shadows sliding eerily, and red columbines flowering out of season.
“They need mapmakers, you see—a few traitors like myself to hold the land still.”
She may not be a slave, but she might almost as well be.
Image: “Bones hung from the black branches like skeletal chimes, clacking”. Picture by Ashley Mackenzie (Source)
Eventually, she is given the greatest gift:
“And, in the end, to be granted a lonely grace. To be freed, and know the cost of it.”
Quotes
• “The fey, shifting land that twists beneath your feet and runs in mad paths of its own devising, which might lead you away and never let you out again.”
• “Without us, the land won’t lie still. It writhes and twists beneath their compasses, so that a crew of surveyors might make the most meticulous measurements imaginable, plotting out each hill and bluff and bend in the river, and when they return the next day everything is a mirror image of itself. Or the river splits in two and one branch wanders off into hills that shimmer slightly in the dawn, or the bluffs are now far too high to climb and must be gone around. Or the crew simply disappears and returns weeks later looking hungry and haunted.”
• “Mapmaking is like tackling your dearest childhood friend and pinning her to the ground while men in linen suits draw red-and-black lines across her flesh.”
Image: “A shaded glade filled with red columbines blooming carelessly out of season.” (Source)
White gaze
When I read this, I assumed Harrow was at least partly native American, but learned from Steven’s excellent review that she’s not. She wrote this in 2016, and in answer to a question about another work on her GR page, she says she is white, and her work is not “Own Voices”. I still think it’s a beautifully told story, but I’m not native American.
See also
• You can read this story HERE.
• I reviewed Harrow’s library-themed story, A Witch’s Guide to Escape, HERE.
• Rief Larsen’s Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet, is a rather different take on a child obsessed with map-making. See my review HERE.
• The arrival of uninvited outsiders, plus a hired map-maker, change a remote English village forever. See my review of Jim Crace's Harvest HERE.
March 27, 2021
Actual rating 4.5/5 stars.
Oona is a whole made from the halves of two different people. She is consigned to belong to neither but she will always belong to the land. Even after she betrays it for a decade it will always have her back.
This is was a sorrowful, unsettling, fantastical, and magical tale, which seems to be Harrow's unique signature. This was partly a historical insight to North American colonisation, partly a homage to both the land and the people who honour it, and partly a purely wonderous and whimsical creation.
Oona is a whole made from the halves of two different people. She is consigned to belong to neither but she will always belong to the land. Even after she betrays it for a decade it will always have her back.
This is was a sorrowful, unsettling, fantastical, and magical tale, which seems to be Harrow's unique signature. This was partly a historical insight to North American colonisation, partly a homage to both the land and the people who honour it, and partly a purely wonderous and whimsical creation.
April 8, 2024
I am reading a nonfiction book at the moment which has some very dark moments & I felt like a bit of light read.
So I'm not sure why I chose to read a Harrow short story, because other than the wonderfully whimsical A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies which you can read here https://reactormag.com/the-autobiogra... her imaginative & beautifully described works that I have read so far have been on the darker side.
& this is the darkest so far. It is about about mapmaker Oona forced in to betraying her people by her love for her sickly brother Ira. Oona is trapped - or is she?
Another work that proves that Harrow should stick (in my humble opinion) to fantasy short stories & be without peer in them, rather than competing in the overcrowded fantasy novel field. My only criticism is that the footnotes start on page 18 - which meant the ending came up a lot faster than I was expecting! I should mark the book down for this - but I won't.
Judge for yourself! https://reactormag.com/the-autobiogra...
So I'm not sure why I chose to read a Harrow short story, because other than the wonderfully whimsical A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies which you can read here https://reactormag.com/the-autobiogra... her imaginative & beautifully described works that I have read so far have been on the darker side.
& this is the darkest so far. It is about about mapmaker Oona forced in to betraying her people by her love for her sickly brother Ira. Oona is trapped - or is she?
Another work that proves that Harrow should stick (in my humble opinion) to fantasy short stories & be without peer in them, rather than competing in the overcrowded fantasy novel field. My only criticism is that the footnotes start on page 18 - which meant the ending came up a lot faster than I was expecting! I should mark the book down for this - but I won't.
Judge for yourself! https://reactormag.com/the-autobiogra...
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
August 23, 2019
Historical, mildly fantasy, this short story is nonetheless heartbreaking and evocative of the whole Company Town mentality. More than anything, it is the drive to live and survive despite being under the power of so many other forces beyond your control that makes this such an emotional tale.
Let's just tack on a decade of forced labor because you're not doing your job. Shame on you for not putting the needs of US over YOU.
Of course, this is absolutely about being marginalized, so beware or forwarned. It could happen to us all.
Let's just tack on a decade of forced labor because you're not doing your job. Shame on you for not putting the needs of US over YOU.
Of course, this is absolutely about being marginalized, so beware or forwarned. It could happen to us all.
September 1, 2019
Strange and wonderful -- I loved this short story and am looking forward to reading the authors novel, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, when it comes out.
August 25, 2019
Wow! This was really good.
Imagine a world where places aren‘t fixed. Where rivers don‘t only snake in our language but in actuality, where mountains move and flowers and trees roam the land. Ever shifting.
Welcome to the West.
There is another continent though, the East. The people that live there cannot understand the magical wild land and thus are trying desperately to conquer it.
Enter Oona, daughter of a Westerner women and an Easterner lover she took briefly. Since both sides hate one another, you can imagine what a „half-breed“ child has to go through, even at the hands of her own relatives.
But she has her brother, Ira, son of yet another lover their mother took once. Sadly, it often is the people we love that become our greatest weakness unless we are vigilant.
Oona becomes a so-called mapmaker in order to provide for her brother. Mapmakers, in this world, have the ability to let the land settle and hold it in the position of their mind‘s eye so there is no shifting. They are therefore employed by the Great Eastern River Company that wants to explore and finally tame all the land - which marks mapmakers as traitors to all Westerners.
We have the magically wild and „savage“ landscape of the West versus the „civilized“ East that is choking on oil. And we have family ties that run deeper than any tree‘s roots.
Naturally, there are some historical similarities to our world that the author thus addressed by design. It’s your choice if you read it as a parable or as „just“ a very creative fantasy story.
The story is written in a rather wonderful way that lets you imagine all the places the expeditions are going to, that lets you feel Ira‘s physical pain and Oona‘s emotional torment. Best of all, though, is the setting itself that I could have roamed through forever.
You can read it for free here: https://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-au...
Imagine a world where places aren‘t fixed. Where rivers don‘t only snake in our language but in actuality, where mountains move and flowers and trees roam the land. Ever shifting.
Welcome to the West.
There is another continent though, the East. The people that live there cannot understand the magical wild land and thus are trying desperately to conquer it.
Enter Oona, daughter of a Westerner women and an Easterner lover she took briefly. Since both sides hate one another, you can imagine what a „half-breed“ child has to go through, even at the hands of her own relatives.
But she has her brother, Ira, son of yet another lover their mother took once. Sadly, it often is the people we love that become our greatest weakness unless we are vigilant.
Oona becomes a so-called mapmaker in order to provide for her brother. Mapmakers, in this world, have the ability to let the land settle and hold it in the position of their mind‘s eye so there is no shifting. They are therefore employed by the Great Eastern River Company that wants to explore and finally tame all the land - which marks mapmakers as traitors to all Westerners.
We have the magically wild and „savage“ landscape of the West versus the „civilized“ East that is choking on oil. And we have family ties that run deeper than any tree‘s roots.
Naturally, there are some historical similarities to our world that the author thus addressed by design. It’s your choice if you read it as a parable or as „just“ a very creative fantasy story.
The story is written in a rather wonderful way that lets you imagine all the places the expeditions are going to, that lets you feel Ira‘s physical pain and Oona‘s emotional torment. Best of all, though, is the setting itself that I could have roamed through forever.
You can read it for free here: https://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-au...
January 1, 2021
3.5 stars.
Oona is a mapmaker. A traitor who is born of two worlds. She is the East and the West, and leads expeditions of men intent on claiming her homelands for themselves. The only thing keeping her grounded is her sick brother, and the exploitation of this by the expedition leader. But Oona longs to escape, to run free to explore and reclaim what is hers by right.
The writing is beautiful, lyrical but not overly done. I also liked Oona and her relationship with her brother. They share a close bond that is well described and developed in a short amount of time. My issue really comes with the world building, which I found lacking in depth. Given that it focuses on Native American culture and mythology, I found the author really didn't drive deep enough.
Beautiful writing, but lacks world building.
Oona is a mapmaker. A traitor who is born of two worlds. She is the East and the West, and leads expeditions of men intent on claiming her homelands for themselves. The only thing keeping her grounded is her sick brother, and the exploitation of this by the expedition leader. But Oona longs to escape, to run free to explore and reclaim what is hers by right.
The writing is beautiful, lyrical but not overly done. I also liked Oona and her relationship with her brother. They share a close bond that is well described and developed in a short amount of time. My issue really comes with the world building, which I found lacking in depth. Given that it focuses on Native American culture and mythology, I found the author really didn't drive deep enough.
Beautiful writing, but lacks world building.
November 10, 2019
This is the story of a woman that can tame the land by holding it in place with her mind long enough for surveyors to pin it down permanently. I really enjoyed this concept and would have liked to see more from it minus most of the adjectives that were used. I felt they distracted from the story instead of adding to it. When every sentence is heavy with at least two or three extra bits of sugar the dessert story is only good for the first few bites. Not many want to stick around to lick the plate.
September 1, 2022
Wow! How is it that this short story hasnt won any awards? Confused.
This haunting and brilliantly written story really pulls you in. The depth of imagery explained here and the situation oona is living in completely has you hooked from start to finish.
I am in awe of Alix Harrows style. This story has a creepy, raw and honest elements that flow so well. She really brings out your feelings in contrast with what is invloved in this story. I felt myself getting upset for ooona. Angry also for her situation.
Well written, intriguing, didnt want it to end.
This haunting and brilliantly written story really pulls you in. The depth of imagery explained here and the situation oona is living in completely has you hooked from start to finish.
I am in awe of Alix Harrows style. This story has a creepy, raw and honest elements that flow so well. She really brings out your feelings in contrast with what is invloved in this story. I felt myself getting upset for ooona. Angry also for her situation.
Well written, intriguing, didnt want it to end.
January 3, 2017
3.5 living land stars.
Oona es una mestiza marcada desde su nacimiento a ser un 'mapmaker' que en su idioma es igual a 'traidora'. La Cia necesita mapas para 'afianzar' la tierra, someterla y edificar sobre ella su propia civilizacion. El concepto no es realmente nuevo, recuerdo claramente la historia de las tierras vivas en una antologia que lei hace un montón de años atrás. La forma en que describe el conflicto sí lo es. Es un autor interesante a seguir que saldrá más tarde.
I was the expedition’s mapmaker, the men’s safety and sanity, but none of them could bring themselves to trust a half-savage. Except Clayton. Although perhaps trust is the wrong word—when a person ties a noose around your heart and holds the end of the rope in their palm, do they really need to trust you?
El viejo conflicto entre la gente del este y la forma en que se apodera y trastorna la forma de vida de los 'salvajes' tampoco es muy nuevo. Pero como digo, hay algo fuerte en como se expresa.
Free to read in Tor:
http://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-aut...
Oona es una mestiza marcada desde su nacimiento a ser un 'mapmaker' que en su idioma es igual a 'traidora'. La Cia necesita mapas para 'afianzar' la tierra, someterla y edificar sobre ella su propia civilizacion. El concepto no es realmente nuevo, recuerdo claramente la historia de las tierras vivas en una antologia que lei hace un montón de años atrás. La forma en que describe el conflicto sí lo es. Es un autor interesante a seguir que saldrá más tarde.
I was the expedition’s mapmaker, the men’s safety and sanity, but none of them could bring themselves to trust a half-savage. Except Clayton. Although perhaps trust is the wrong word—when a person ties a noose around your heart and holds the end of the rope in their palm, do they really need to trust you?
El viejo conflicto entre la gente del este y la forma en que se apodera y trastorna la forma de vida de los 'salvajes' tampoco es muy nuevo. Pero como digo, hay algo fuerte en como se expresa.
Free to read in Tor:
http://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-aut...
February 9, 2019
Wow.
This is one of the things I love about anthologies, that they are so often filled with perfect gems from authors I would not otherwise encounter. Alix Harrow's story is set in an alternative America where the land is resisting colonisation, where the native peoples have a connection with the land that, Mythago Wood-like, confound attempts to force settlement - but, while into the early 20th Century the United States has barely reached the Mississippi, it still seems that the technology and perseverance and cruelty of the European settlers will dominate.
The POV character is Oona, the progeny of a drunken Irishman and a native Amerind woman, employed through necessity as a Mapmaker, someone able to help the invaders find their way into the hostile land. Harrow wonderfully portrays the dichotomy of seeking to earn a living in the economy imposed by the white man while betraying her own heritage and a people who have shunned her half-breed nature. We also get a glimpse, via footnote, into wider world of native magic; of the headwaters of the Nile being an inland ocean populated by gods, of Ireland filled with hallucinatory mists and transient fairy mounds.
Just beautiful.
This is one of the things I love about anthologies, that they are so often filled with perfect gems from authors I would not otherwise encounter. Alix Harrow's story is set in an alternative America where the land is resisting colonisation, where the native peoples have a connection with the land that, Mythago Wood-like, confound attempts to force settlement - but, while into the early 20th Century the United States has barely reached the Mississippi, it still seems that the technology and perseverance and cruelty of the European settlers will dominate.
The POV character is Oona, the progeny of a drunken Irishman and a native Amerind woman, employed through necessity as a Mapmaker, someone able to help the invaders find their way into the hostile land. Harrow wonderfully portrays the dichotomy of seeking to earn a living in the economy imposed by the white man while betraying her own heritage and a people who have shunned her half-breed nature. We also get a glimpse, via footnote, into wider world of native magic; of the headwaters of the Nile being an inland ocean populated by gods, of Ireland filled with hallucinatory mists and transient fairy mounds.
Just beautiful.
April 28, 2023
4.5 stars
Haunting.
Free on Tor.com.
Haunting.
Free on Tor.com.
September 4, 2020
Wow. What a wonderful short story this was. Such beautiful language. Now I need to read this author's book The Ten Thousand Doors of January.
5 stars
5 stars
January 5, 2020
This had moments of extreme beauty and wonder, and others that made me very uncomfortable - not in the story as such, but in the approach to it.
Though there are shared experiences and parallels, the context of colonisation is different here than on Turtle Island, which is the land this story appears to be based on, and I cannot speak to those experiences. But there are comments on the original story that put words to some of my unnamed discomfort and I suggest reading those for nuance. Still read this, yes, it's a beautiful story, but proceed with caution.
Though there are shared experiences and parallels, the context of colonisation is different here than on Turtle Island, which is the land this story appears to be based on, and I cannot speak to those experiences. But there are comments on the original story that put words to some of my unnamed discomfort and I suggest reading those for nuance. Still read this, yes, it's a beautiful story, but proceed with caution.
July 3, 2019
5 stars. Incredible combo of historical fiction and fantasy, and one of the best of the (usually outstanding) Tor shorts I've read.
Read it for yourself here: https://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-au...
Read it for yourself here: https://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-au...
March 2, 2019
I read this cause my friend Chi gave it five stars - it was excellent and well worth the read!
find it here
https://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-au...
Totally awesome comeuppance and I would devour a whole book of this character and her world.
find it here
https://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-au...
Totally awesome comeuppance and I would devour a whole book of this character and her world.
December 22, 2016
Growing up, people hissed that I was born to be a mapmaker, being half of one thing and half the other. In our language, the word for mapmaker is also the word for traitor.
Wow. This story seems very simple at first. The footnotes took me by surprise, but I went along with it. Then I started to notice that I couldn't tell fact from fiction. Interesting. Then I realized the story had me in its grip, held fast, like that Alien creature latched onto a face.
I whispered I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry in a broken little chant, as if I had been assigned to say it a certain number of times before I could receive absolution, except I knew the number was infinite.
Read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/2016/12/14/the-aut...
June 14, 2024
Not as strong as some of Alix E. Harrow's other works in my opinion, but I loved the queer-normative world.
January 21, 2021
Ooooh, that was one very, creepy read. I loved it! (Especially the comeuppance - nice!)
May 24, 2019
A short e book with a compelling story. I liked the lead, who was realistic and original. I did get confused when it came to the whole magic thing. But overall, I enjoyed it.
August 7, 2020
Weird and wonderful. Ms. Harrow has quite an imagination and her gifted prose sucks you right into an alternate history that suddenly seems more real than the past you’ve known and learned about all your life.
February 19, 2022
The writing is fantastic, as expected, the world very vivid and lots of fun (the footnotes, the alternate universe), though I ended up feeling slightly disappointed with plot or themes (Colonialism and exploration is oppressive to natives. Nice when they can escape it). But the bar set by some of her other short stories is incredibly high so my disappointment, if that is, is only in that context, by everybody else I would be looking for her backlist.
June 17, 2021
For a short story this tale has a lot of depth. Oona could’ve had a much longer tale with more details about her past, her time working for Clayton, and her future, but enough is given here to make it all still satisfying. So much life breathed into the characters in less than 50 pages. The footnotes are clever, and I would be thrilled to see Harrow write a full historical fantasy novel (on Oona or entirely new characters) with footnotes included.
October 26, 2019
Weird West in the vein of Laura Anne Gilman's
West Wind's Fool: and Other Stories of the Devil's West
. Just ok for me. Compared to Gilman's more complete world, Harrow could have done a lot more with the mapmaking "power" central to her story. Feels like this idea needed to gestate a bit longer before putting pen to paper. Promising but underwhelming.
December 28, 2022
This was very good! I enjoyed Oona's character, the whole story was neat and intense. Alix E Harrow continues to fascinate me with her words and works of art! 5 ⭐!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 182 reviews