Searching for Savanna (adult nonfiction)

     "There's a refrain you hear from Native American advocates about this stark invisibility. As the researchers wrote in their report, Indigenous women who are missing or murdered dissappear not just once, but three times: 'in life in the media, in the data.'

     This is the story of one woman in one tribe, but her life and her death illuminate this ongoing crisis and the efforts by Native women to resolve it."

     The above quote consists of the last two paragraphs of the prologue to Mona Gable's Searching For Savanna: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many. It neatly sums up the themes of this timely and thought provoking book. 

     Savanna Lafontaine-Greywind was eight months pregnant with a baby girl she had named Haisley Jo. Although close to her family, she was excited about moving in with her boyfriend and embarking on their life together. Like so many first time mothers-to-be she was simultaneously eager to hold her baby and apprehensive about labor. Sounds like many of us, right?

     But that's where the resemblance ends. Instead of the joy of meeting her newborn surrounded by family, friends, flowers, and balloons she vanished. Her mutilated body minus baby was found in a river. Her true crime narrative covers her life and death and the search for answers. 

     And it's so much more. Interspersed through the narrative are chapters on the relative indifference of law enforcement officers and legislators to a tragic national epidemic, and the valiant efforts of Indigenous women to make life less precarious for the girls and women in their families and tribes. 

     If you have a ❤️ for social and racial justice you'll find this poignant and powerful narrative to be a must read. 

On a purrrsonal note, I'm at the in-laws WAY too early (so Eugene can hunt), doing my best to ignore their 📺 and wake up enough, minus the benefit of ☕️ , to get some serious homework out of the way. 

A great big shout out (with wishes for a safe and fabulous Thanksgiving) goes out to my readers.

Jules Hathaway 

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