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maraculous's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Abandonment, Child abuse, and Alcoholism
Moderate: Sexual violence
sjanke2's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.5
This book felt like a meeting point of In the Night of Memory and Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land. As a reader, I connected with Geller's former professions of walking streets during a political campaign (grueling) and being an information professional.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Child abuse, Grief, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Violence
anishinaabekwereads's review
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Dog Flower by Danielle Geller is almost certainly not the Indigenous memoir most people will expect it to be. Geller, a Diné (Navajo) woman who grew up in Florida and Pennsylvania away from her homeland, documents with haunting starkness the frequent instability of her childhood, the death of her mother, and the costs addiction and violence take upon children. Needless to say there is a lot of pain within the pages of this memoir and there is little of the cultural tourism I suspect many people want or expect from Indigenous authors. Instead, we get a story of perspective, of piecing together lines and life. What we learn is the way addiction and violence are cyclical, repetitive beasts that become mundane in their breathless ability to make create a routine. Particularly, we learn what life is like for those who love and often feel induced to caregive for those who are struggling with substance abuse.It’s important to note here that this memoir is loving, is raw, and is both compelling and hard to look away from. Geller asks us to witness her history, the history of her mother, the history of her father and sisters.
Geller’s use of “the archive” is both intriguing and haunting. As you move through this memoir you see the construction of a familial archive, an archive of grief and of remembrance and presence. She pieces together her mother’s diaries, photographs, and her own memories to trace her mother’s absence from her childhood on. In that way, we watch as Geller tries to see things the way her mother might have, we watch as she tries to reconcile what may not be reconcilable. I found her use of [almost] footnotes to be a frequently effective mechanism. Buried at the bottom of many pages, in smaller font, Geller tells another story lodged within her own recountings and the effect is both academic and profoundly powerful even if their direct relation to the main body of text requires you to slow and consider.
There's a lot in this memoir that destroyed me, things I find hard to talk about, but remain with me the nonetheless. Know going in that this is not an easy book. Major CONTENT WARNINGS for addiction, alcoholism, domestic violence, sexual violence, sexual assauly, parent-child relationships, and death.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Grief, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship
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