The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter: A Winner (or, No One Will Ever Read This Book Again)
This is a longstanding feud between aum and I. He's always contended that The Education of Little Tree would have been better titled (you need to shout this, sounding just like the Elephant Man) "I AM NOT AN INDIAN!"
I would like to argue the position that the superior title of the book is neither The Education of Little Tree nor I AM NOT AN INDIAN, but "Kiss My Ass, Suckers!"
I read The Education of Little Tree in the tenth grade. It was taught to me by Ms. Meinhardt. Meinhardt was one of the few good ones at Lakeland. There were not many. She taught me how to look for something called--for want of a better term--social relevance.
The course wasn't titled "Socially Relevant Literature." They called it Multicultural Literature. I took that to mean that understanding this whole "Multicultural"-thing was going to be important in our society.
The books were chosen for midwestern rural/suburban white kids. Probably by the instructor. One of them was Little Tree.
The book had a distinct voice, the episodic narrative and story arch gave it a good form, the protagonist constantly interacted with other characters. It was the kind of book I liked reading. It definitely pulled you in to a world all its own.
The gist of it was this; a little Cherokee boy loses his parents. He's to be divied up along with the furniture after the funeral. His grandparents intercede and take him to the mountains.
There's the premise for you. It ends unhappily.
Great passages about walking around out of doors. Lot's of cracker-barrel philosophizing. There are some nice passages deprecative of the state and its institutions, school in particular and Christianity in general. Plus, it's got bobcat sex in it.
Meinhardt told us, before we started reading it, that the book's original claim to autobiography had been thoroughly rebuked. That was total horseshit and totally on the record as fact.
When we finished reading it, though, she told us that Forrest Carter was really a guy named Asa Carter. And not only did he ghostwrite speeches for Alabaman governor George Wallace, but he was also a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He wrote The Outlaw Jessie Wales, as well.
Now *that's* education!
Here's one of Carter. You can almost smell the Rebel Yell on his jowls.