Reviews

Savage Conversations by LeAnne Howe

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archytas's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This was much trippier than I had expected it to be, and to some extent, reinforced that I don't really excel at reading plays: my brain struggles to bring the scene to life. Having said that, I came in with very high expectations: I loved LeAnne Howe's Shell Shaker to little bits, and I am fascinated, as many are, with Mary Todd Lincoln, so a play looking at her haunting by a Dakota victim of her husband, felt irresistible.
The play has some compelling dialogue, mostly from the character named only "Savage Indian" and the unforgettable repetition of the "the Rope Seethes". But I struggled more with Todd's role in the text - a figure of extreme emotions - and the mixing of themes of filicide and genocide, Todd's crimes and her husband's. Howe's research is excellent, and she gets a lot of nuances in around this - from Todd's family to where the Lincolns were aligned - but the price is that it becomes hard to follow the train in a short work with a lot packed in. I guess I got more out of it as an essay than a drama.
Still - I'd be keen to see a performance, just to get what I was missing.

reneereads's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

lexmidd's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5 Picked this up on a whim at the library. It’s a kind of play in verse depicting conversations between Mary Todd Lincoln and the spirit of a Dakota man who was hung (one of 38 men) on Lincoln’s orders. It’s very short but kind of a difficult, disturbing read.

rachelsilvy's review against another edition

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5.0

Abraham Lincoln is worshiped from a traditional U.S. historical perspective. This is yet another part of the rewritten history utilized to benefit white U.S. Americans' perspective of themselves and their enjoyment of the white savior narrative.

Several historically accurate events largely forgotten by non-indigenous peoples are joined in this play script, especially that "thirty-eight Dakota men [were] hanged in a mass killing the day after Christmas in 1862. Mary's husband [Abraham Lincoln] signed the order for their execution" (ix). After their bodies were cut down and buried, their bodies were exhumed and used as medical cadavers. In a fictional rendering of Mary Todd Lincoln's historically documented hallucinations "of nightly visits from a violent 'Indian,' who he said scalped her, cut bones from her cheeks, and made slits in her eyelids, sewing them open [...]," she must contend with the spirit of one of the men who died in what is still known as the largest execution in U.S. history (ix).

There are only three characters in this play: Mary Todd Lincoln, Savage Indian, and The Rope. Readers and viewers are challenged to reassess the historical impact of characters we cherish in our U.S. history fairy tale, such as when the character Savage Indian exclaims, "I've risen and searched / The empty scaffolding in Mankato, / Heard the faint cries of the Dakhótas on the wind, / Impossible to count as stardust... / Mr. Lincoln and all his generals thought they could end / Our race. / Where is he now?" (Howe 101). It is our job to study a fully-accurate history. The question "Where is he now?" rings true, for it is clear that the version of Abraham Lincoln who persists to this day is not the true Abraham Lincoln.

gabriellejane's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Not sure if reading this was the right format for me. I think it would have been better as an audiobook. I do think this play would be perfect for an academic discussion and I think it would have been a better experience to talk about it with other people.