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Featured Book and Author:
Marlo Schalesky
Only the Wind Remembers
Reviewed by Donna Conger
I was waiting to board a plane to a writer's convention, and a lady in the Salt Lake City airport looked
at the copy of "Only the Wind Remembers" in my hands. Her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh, I've heard that is so good!" I was
only a few pages into it, but I replied, "Yes, it is wonderful!"
I meant it. Within a few pages, Ms. Schalesky launches the reader into the life and history of Wanasi, the
last of his tribe. I thought it would be a sad story--a forty year old Yahi Indian who literally walks from his world to the
world of the white man--and leaves all he knows behind. But "Only the Wind Remembers" is the spine tingling story of one man's
crossover into the alien world of the saldu (white man), and into a multi layered mystery that culminates in a multi layered
surprise ending.
Based on historical facts in the year 1911, Wanasi, known only as Ishi (man), faces a new world composed
of saldu who speak an alien tongue, offer him sweet, round pieces of bread with a hole in the middle called doe-nuh,
and beans that taste like honey mixed with fire. Ms. Schalesky does an incredible job of showing us the white man's world
through an Indian's eyes, down to the strange contraptions called shoes. Wanasi's decision to leave his safe world makes him
a curious sideshow to the saldu men, women, and children gazing at him through jail bars. To Thomas Morgan, anthropologist,
however, he is a miracle. The young scientist rescues the Indian from the prying eyes of the citizens of San Francisco, and
makes an instant friend.
Thomas quickly learns that the Indian is a person who feels and who has needs like any other human being.
He proceeds with his plans to make a home for Ishi at the museum. Ishi trusts Thomas Morgan. The saldu has given him the warm
hand of friendship, a soft bed, and food. All is right with Ishi and Thomas, but not with Thomas's wife, Allison.
The young anthropologist does not know that his agenda with his miracle is interfering with the private,
complicated world of his wife. The real miracle begins when Ishi, Thomas, and Allison's lives come together. A triangle of
bonds are formed, and at the point, as it should be, God above it all. In a matter of weeks, earth shattering secrets are
revealed and hearts healed--because one Indian stepped off the edge of his world into another, a strange, scary place where
God had plans for him. "Only the Wind Remembers" is a beautiful love story--romantic love, apape love, and the mind boggling
God-love our Heavenly Father has for us, so much that He will work in very strange ways that we might have life, and have
it more abundantly.
Available in bookstores nationwide and through Christianbook.com
Moody Publishers
ISBN: 080243324-3
$12.99
371 pages
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