White Magic

March 1, 2021

Washuta (My Body Is a Book of Rules) delivers a searing set of essays, each a fractal examination of the connections between her personal struggle with loneliness, abuse, and addiction, and the devastation of Indigenous communities swindled by colonial settlers, white developers, and foisted treaties rarely honored. Lured by the possibilities of fulfilling her desire to be loved and getting help for the hard work of recovery, Washuta is both drawn to and conflicted about modern witchery. But this is not a book about witchcraft or the occult. Topics and tone sweep from private introspection viewed through strange and often humorous lenses of Twin Peaks, claymation Mark Twain and his Devil, and the relationship woes of Fleetwood Mac's Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, to highly researched, unvarnished examples from the painful histories of injustice and loss for many Pacific Northwest Indigenous communities. VERDICT Washuta's story and struggles become a metaphor for the toll of colonialism on generations of Indigenous people like herself. Readers of recovery narratives, women's issues, and keenly observed social commentary will be rewarded here.--Janet Tapper, formerly with Univ. of Western States Lib., Portland, OR

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2021
The colonization of Native Americans is often portrayed--by white narrators of history--as a set of actions located in the far distant past. In this powerful collection of interlinked essays, Cowlitz writer Washuta (My Body Is a Book of Rules, 2014) explores the inescapable presence of colonization and other traumas as they circle through and around her romantic relationships, her Native identity, and even the pop culture she consumes. "Story is a system of cause and consequence," Washuta writes, "that builds sense from the incomprehensible." Though she is eminently aware of the structure and requirements of stories--stories told by astrologers, by ancestors, by video game designers, by playwrights--Washuta's essays refuse the mandate of a tidy resolution. Instead she circles around each subject, inspecting it as symbol, myth, metaphor, and reality, all while allowing her readers space to draw their own conclusions, or to reject the need for any conclusion at all. Like a stage magician, she asks readers to look again. White Magic is an insightful, surprising, and eloquent record of stories of magic and the magic in stories.

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March 15, 2021
A Cowlitz woman's collection of interconnected essays on memory, nostalgia, and introspection, conveyed through personal history, popular culture, and magic. Washuta begins with an account of her history with magic and witchcraft growing up. "The truth is I'm not a witch, exactly: I'm a person with prayers, a person who believes in spirits and plays with fire," she writes. The author's story is also one of personal healing, as she writes candidly about her abuse of alcohol, being misdiagnosed as bipolar, and suffering from PTSD. Across 10 interwoven essays that move through Washuta's life, she uses popular-culture references--e.g., Fleetwood Mac, Twin Peaks, and the video game "Oregon Trail II"--as guideposts in her own journey of understanding the world and her place in it. Washuta shifts her focus frequently (perhaps too much for some readers), from the history of the Seattle area to an in-depth discussion of horror movies to her search for an anti-drinking educational video she though she saw as a teen. At the same time, she investigates the connections among magic, witchcraft, and her Native heritage. The book breaks from traditional memoir in intriguing ways, including footnotes that speak directly to readers and an essay that begins by focusing on Twin Peaks and then slowly begins to emulate it, moving back and forth through time and showing the changing nature of narrative across shifting time frames. Throughout, Washuta is consistently honest about her own past and opinions, and she is unafraid to directly question readers, demanding engagement with the text. "This book is a narrative," she writes. "It has an arc. But the tension is not in what happened when I lived it; it's in what happened when I wrote it. Like I already told you, this is not just a recounted story; I am trying to make something happen and record the process and results." A fascinating magic trick of a memoir that illuminates a woman's search for meaning.

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