Dorris, Michael. A Yellow Raft in Blue Water. New York: Warner Books, 1987.
This is high school to me. I remember being holed up somewhere reading this nonstop. Hot off the press, freshly published and oh so new I couldn’t put it down. I reread it and reread it until finally I could move on to other Michael Dorris creations, which somehow were never quite as good. Nothing compared to A Yellow Raft in Blue Water back then and it is still a faovrite to this day.
Someone described this book as an onion, reading it was like peeling back the layers of a story, and while that imagery is accurate enough, I like to think of Yellow Raft as a game of telephone. First, there is Rayona. She tells the story from her perspective. She is all of fifteen years old…at that difficult age where rebellion against your mother is the easiest thing to do. As she says, “when mom and I have conversations, they mostly involve subjects not personal to our lives” (p 26). She tells her story like it’s the honest truth. Then, there is Christine, her alcoholic mother, and her story. In the beginning you want to hate her for how seemingly unfair she had been to Rayona. But, learning about Christine’s heartbreak you realize Rayona’s reality is only her perception. The wires of communication have been crossed and in some cases, completely disconnected. Christine had her reasons for everything she did (and didn’t do). “I never had been good company for myself” says Christine (p 185). Finally, there is Ida, Christine’s mother. Her story is, by far, the most revealing and tragic. Everything you heard whispered from Rayona through Christina is trapped in the warped truth of Ida. All three women are stubborn, flawed by fate, and determined to make the best of life as they know it even if it means coming off as cruel to others. Being on the inside, privy to their hearts, makes you want to shake each one screaming, “talk to your daughter!”
Favorite lines:
“Ghosts were more lonesome than anything else. They watched the living through a thick plate of glass, a one-way mirror” (p176).
“A bath brought me peace, made me float free” (p340).
BookLust Twist: In both Book Lust and More Book Lust. In Book Lust Pearl mentions A Yellow Raft in Blue Water early; on page 23 in the chapter “American Indian Literature.” In the chapter “Men Chanelling Women” (p 166) in More Book Lust Pearl adds A Yellow Raft in Blue Water because Michael Dorris does an amazing job setting the voices of three very different women free.
~*LunaSea*~ 