The Grass Dancer Susan Power

A Practical Guide to Reading and Working With The Grass Dancer

The Grass Dancer is a 1994 novel by Susan Power that interweaves three generational narratives set among the Standing Rock Sioux. It blends magical realism with historical fiction, and understanding how the structure works will save you more time than any reading guide can offer. The book is not difficult, but it rewards patience. There are three main storylines that overlap and echo each other across decades. The contemporary thread follows a young Crow woman named Danica Yellow Eagle who survives a car accident that kills her son and returns to her North Dakota reservation. Her grandmother Grace, central to the second storyline, endured forced sterilization and institutionalization during the mid-20th century Indian boarding school era. The third narrative reaches further back, dealing with displacement and cultural erosion. Power's technique here is deliberate cross-cutting. She moves between timelines not chronologically but thematically. A trauma in one era resurfaces in another. This is the structural trick that trips up casual readers, and it's the first thing you should get used to before diving in.

I spent a few days rereading the middle sections because the timeline jumps made me lose the thread. What I ended up doing was mapping each chapter against its rough date — one paragraph per timeline — on a scrap of paper. It took about ten minutes and clarified everything. I don't recommend this for everyone, but if you're the type who needs to know where you are temporally, it helps a lot.

Why the Structure Matters More Than the Plot

Most people focus on the plot summary when discussing this book, but the real point is the form. Power is making an argument about how trauma travels through families and communities. The nonlinear structure is the argument itself, not just a stylistic choice. Each return to an earlier era is essentially a flashback occurring at the generational level. The magical realism elements — songs that seem to have power, vivid dream sequences, coincidences that feel fateful — are not decorative. They're the language Power uses to express what realism alone cannot capture about Indigenous experience. Dismiss them as mere fantasy and you miss half the book. Treat them as symbolic and you get closer to what she's doing. Here's something beginners consistently miss: the grass itself is a structural motif, not just imagery. It appears differently in each timeline. In Grace's section it grows over places of suffering. In Danica's it represents something more open, more uncertain. Tracking the grass across sections gives you a free understanding of how the themes shift without needing an essay to tell you.

Where the Book Stumbles

Power is not untouchable. The prose can be uneven. Some passages lean into sentimentality that undercuts the harder material around them. The female characters are well drawn, but the male figures — particularly the men in Danica's life — tend toward stereotype. This is a known weakness and it's worth acknowledging upfront so you don't spend time wondering if you're reading too harshly. The pacing drags in the Grace sections. There are chapters that repeat the same emotional beat three times. If you're reading for plot momentum, these will test your patience. If you're reading for atmosphere and thematic resonance, they serve a purpose. Both approaches are valid. Just know which one you're taking. For readers looking for something more rigorous historically, Power takes significant artistic license with boarding school records and the sterilization programs of the 1960s-70s. The core truth is there — forced sterilization of Native women did happen, particularly in Indian Health Service hospitals — but Power compresses and condenses. If you want the documentary record alongside the fiction, pair this with Deborah A. Miranda's work or federal Indian health reports from the era.

Practical Reading Approach

Don't read it straight through in one sitting. It works best read in short bursts — maybe forty-five minutes per session — because the emotional weight accumulates quickly. Pause between timelines if you need to. The book asks you to hold multiple griefs simultaneously, which is exhausting even for experienced literary fiction readers. Take notes on the recurring symbols. Song, grass, water, horses, teeth. Each one changes meaning by the final chapters. Going back and comparing their earlier appearances to their later ones is where the book reveals its full architecture. There is no single downloadable version that's both legal and readable. The book is in print through various publishers and available through major retailers and libraries. Use your local library's interlibrary loan if the physical copy is checked out. Audiobook versions exist and handle the shifting timelines reasonably well, though some narrators flatten the voice differences between generations.

Who Should Read This and Who Should Skip It

Read it if you're interested in Indigenous literature, multi-generational trauma narratives, or books that use structure as a thematic device. Skip it if you want a fast plot, clear villain resolution, or straightforward realism. This is not a page-turner in the conventional sense. It is a book that sits with you afterward, which is precisely what Power intends. The Grass Dancer Susan Power remains one of the more important works in contemporary Native American fiction, not because it is perfect, but because it refuses to simplify what it depicts. That refusal is what makes it worth the effort it demands.