Night Sky, Morning Star

By Evelina Zuni Lucero

At the Indian artisans show in Santa Clara Pueblo, Cecelia Bluespruce sits with her wares in the middle of a row of booths--a good place to catch buyers. She is a successful Native American artist, a sculptor and potter of renown. But Cecelia is in the middle of something deeper than an art show, for she has become trapped by dreams and shadows of her past. Night Sky, Morning Star is a story of remembrance and reconciliation in one Native American family separated by time and chance. Cecelia's grown son, Jude, now wants to learn about the father he has never known. Political activist Julian Morning Star, imprisoned twenty years for a crime he did not commit, is unaware that his son even exists. Troubled by dreams, lies, and denial of the past, Cecelia is guided toward wholeness by family and friends who have their own pasts to confront. This compelling novel plunges readers into the hubbub of the Indian arts market and into the grim reality of prison life. Evelina Zuni Lucero introduces us to experiences we may find unfamiliar: diverse Native American traditions, life on a BIA Indian agency compound, the making of an Indian activist. But she also reintroduces us to two things we all live for: the power of story and the power of love. Night Sky, Morning Star is the fiction winner of the 1999 First Book Awards competition of the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816520550
• ISBN13: 9780816520558
• Release Date: July 2000
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Length: 229 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Good Book--Read It

I recommend that you read this book if you like to read stories about Native American people. It is a good book that has some action, and it's also a book about the dreams and the past of a family. Even though this book isn't that long, it sure is a good story. The book " Night Sky Morning Star" is a novel about a Native American family. The setting takes place in the Southwest of New Mexico. This book takes place during the 1980's through the year 2000. It is about a woman named Cecelia Bluespruce who is a Native American artist, a sculptor, and a potter. Cecelia Bluespruce is a girl trapped by dreams, lies, shadows and denials of her past. The book tells the story of a family that has been separated by time and people. Cecelia's grown son Jude is in a situation where he wants to know about his father that he never met and Cecelia is in a place where she doesn't want to tell Jude about his father. Jude's father is in prison for something that he didn't even do. He starts to remember how he and Cecelia together, and he also starts to remember about his son. Now Julian is wonders if his son still exists. In the book it starts off real easy to read, but when you get to the middle, you find that it becomes difficult. The book starts off with one year and then flashes back to the past, so you have to have a good memory to put the events in order.

I couldn't put it down...

I bought this book to send to a Native American friend on the East coast, on recommendation from my sister. I don't know what I was expecting, but this was one of the best books I've read in ages. Lucero's characters are real, almost touchable people; her prose is lucid and direct. I had to buy a second copy for myself because I couldn't bear to part with it, and have re-read the book several times over the last few months.