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Reviews
Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crane Murdoch
shelbyreeves's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.5
tffnymtg's review
5.0
This was very well written. I felt like I was right there with the events. I appreciate the perspective of telling Lissa's story rather than the more clinical story of the bad characters.
allisonwonderlandreads's review against another edition
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Yellow Bird is more than a true crime book, though it has that kernel of intrigue to draw you in. It's a story of the MHA Nation in North Dakota. It addresses their history, pulling in social, economic, and political elements. And it specifically examines the impact of the oil boom from 2006 to around 2015. It was during this time that Kristopher Clark went missing. A non-native oil worker, his case was stymied by multiple factors. For one, the lack of a body meant it couldn't be classified as a crime for certain despite the many suspicious factors around his disappearance. Furthermore, jurisdictional gaps between tribal sovereignty and both local and federal law enforcement kept officials from taking action to find him. Lissa Yellowbird, a member of the MHA nation, took an interest in the case, and her investigations as a concerned citizen pushed things along when they threatened to stagnate. The author spent years alongside Lissa and her family as a journalist and a friend, getting to know them, learning Lissa's process, reading her extensive documentation, and even participating in the search for Clark's body.
One thing I admired about the book is the non-linear storytelling. Chapters could include details about Clark, then dive into big-picture economic history, then offer a vignette from Lissa's personal life, and then offer play-by-plays of a break in the case. It captured themes well and kept the many elements of the book at the forefront. The author might examine colonialism at one point and then look into public health and drug use the next through Lissa's experiences. It ensures the reader doesn't forget how interconnected all these things are and how they influenced not only Clark's murder but also the path to justice, as rocky as it was. This is not a fast-paced read, and I think it suits the complexity of the author's topic. It did result in my mental engagement waxing and waning as the topics shifted, but I didn't think any parts were tangential or poorly thought out.
My metric for non-fiction has a lot to do with how much I learned-- how much it will reframe information I thought I had or impact things I could glean going forward. It's also about how much it will linger with me in its complexity. This book definitely achieves that, teaching me about current events and their historical causes. It has an eye on intergenerational trauma, drawing on specific examples in Lissa's family while considering broader political forces like exploitation and power disparities that make it so.
I found the author's note about her process and approach informative. She didn't go the typical route of sensationalizing the murder to suit what readers clamor for. She considered her subjects and her own role, including as many voices as possible, allowing the key players to read and give notes before publication. While no book is perfect, I appreciate her thoughtfulness around being a white writer documenting indigenous experiences. I also think it was a good move to clearly "include herself" in the book rather than playing at being an impartial observer. I listened to this as an audiobook, which is also cool because it's read by the author.
One thing I admired about the book is the non-linear storytelling. Chapters could include details about Clark, then dive into big-picture economic history, then offer a vignette from Lissa's personal life, and then offer play-by-plays of a break in the case. It captured themes well and kept the many elements of the book at the forefront. The author might examine colonialism at one point and then look into public health and drug use the next through Lissa's experiences. It ensures the reader doesn't forget how interconnected all these things are and how they influenced not only Clark's murder but also the path to justice, as rocky as it was. This is not a fast-paced read, and I think it suits the complexity of the author's topic. It did result in my mental engagement waxing and waning as the topics shifted, but I didn't think any parts were tangential or poorly thought out.
My metric for non-fiction has a lot to do with how much I learned-- how much it will reframe information I thought I had or impact things I could glean going forward. It's also about how much it will linger with me in its complexity. This book definitely achieves that, teaching me about current events and their historical causes. It has an eye on intergenerational trauma, drawing on specific examples in Lissa's family while considering broader political forces like exploitation and power disparities that make it so.
I found the author's note about her process and approach informative. She didn't go the typical route of sensationalizing the murder to suit what readers clamor for. She considered her subjects and her own role, including as many voices as possible, allowing the key players to read and give notes before publication. While no book is perfect, I appreciate her thoughtfulness around being a white writer documenting indigenous experiences. I also think it was a good move to clearly "include herself" in the book rather than playing at being an impartial observer. I listened to this as an audiobook, which is also cool because it's read by the author.
eli22's review against another edition
medium-paced
5.0
This was a hard listen! I had to stop several times cause it made me so emotional, but it’s such a good read I really enjoyed it. Very informative
bearsincastles's review
3.0
As suggested by the title, this book has three main storylines, intergenerational trauma wrought upon a Native American community in North Dakota, the corrosion of a community in the face of an oil boom, and a woman's search for a murdered oil worker. Each of these storylines are thoroughly investigated and documented, but they are poorly integrated. This book tries to do a lot, but doesn't do all of it equally well. Yellow Bird herself is a fascinating subject. The story of political intrigue (including the coverup of a murder) is also well done. The actual investigation into the disappearance of KC, which may draw many "true crime" fans to the book, seems to be an afterthought that at times weighs down the pacing.
jlyons's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
3.5
twowheelsaway's review
5.0
Wow, this book took me a while to get through, on and off. I initially heard about it on an episode of This American Life , well worth a listen itself.
The book is something entirely different, though. It's a window onto the Fort Berthold reservation, where the things the US did (and continues to do) to indigenous people echo in the people and the land. It's a look at the effects of nearly unfettered capitalism- some good, mostly bad. It's a well-written true crime story.
Mostly, though, it's a portrait of Lissa Yellow Bird, a woman Crane describes as the most iconoclastic person she knows. It flips between Lissa's past and the hunt she's on for a missing oil worker, KC Clarke. Anyone just looking for a true crime story might be disappointed by how much time the book spends away from the hunt, but ultimately Lissa's story is the more interesting part anyways. What possesses her to spend months of her life, taking time off of work, to hunt unpaid for someone she never met? I can say for sure that I would do no such thing, or honestly that it wouldn't occur to me.
Sometimes reading an adventure novel I get caught up thinking, "I don't get it. Why the hell has this character left behind everything they loved to do this thing that seems futile and so much bigger than them?" I wondered this in Yellow Bird as well, but I can't deny that Lissa actually did it. So, now, I find myself actually considering the question-- and Yellow Bird lays out enough of Lissa's imperfect life that I might begin to have some kind of idea.
The book is something entirely different, though. It's a window onto the Fort Berthold reservation, where the things the US did (and continues to do) to indigenous people echo in the people and the land. It's a look at the effects of nearly unfettered capitalism- some good, mostly bad. It's a well-written true crime story.
Mostly, though, it's a portrait of Lissa Yellow Bird, a woman Crane describes as the most iconoclastic person she knows. It flips between Lissa's past and the hunt she's on for a missing oil worker, KC Clarke. Anyone just looking for a true crime story might be disappointed by how much time the book spends away from the hunt, but ultimately Lissa's story is the more interesting part anyways. What possesses her to spend months of her life, taking time off of work, to hunt unpaid for someone she never met? I can say for sure that I would do no such thing, or honestly that it wouldn't occur to me.
Sometimes reading an adventure novel I get caught up thinking, "I don't get it. Why the hell has this character left behind everything they loved to do this thing that seems futile and so much bigger than them?" I wondered this in Yellow Bird as well, but I can't deny that Lissa actually did it. So, now, I find myself actually considering the question-- and Yellow Bird lays out enough of Lissa's imperfect life that I might begin to have some kind of idea.