A Council of Dolls

Last updated
A Council of Dolls
A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power cover.jpg
First edition cover
Author Mona Susan Power
Cover artist
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre
  • Indigenous
  • Literary
  • Cultural Heritage
  • Magical Realism
  • Historical / 20th Century / General
  • Coming of Age
  • Own Voices
  • Saga
[2]
Set in
Publisher Mariner Books imprint of HarperCollins
Publication date
8 August 2023 [2]
Media typePrinted novel
Pages308
ISBN 9780063281097 hardcover
OCLC 1340038999
813/54-dc23/eng/20220808
LC Class PS3566.083578 C68 2023
Website www.monasusanpower.com/a-council-of-dolls

A Council of Dolls is a 2023 historical fiction novel about multiple generations of Yanktonai Dakota women grappling with the effects of settler colonialism, told partially through the point of view of their dolls. The novel is by Mona Susan Power (Standing Rock Sioux), PEN Award-winning author of several works related to Native identity, such as The Grass Dancer . [3] The book was released through Mariner Books August 2023. A Council of Dolls was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. [4] [5]

Contents

Plot summary

Three generations of Dakota girls and their dolls live through family and societal change. The girls and dolls can talk to each other, and the dolls have powers to help the girls through the tragedies they face. [2]

Concept and creation

Author Mona Susan Power was guided by her family's own history with unwelcome government intervention into Native society and multigenerational experiences with Indian boarding schools. At times writing the novel was so emotional she would cry. [6] [7] [8] The book was written during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The first draft was completed in four months following recovery from a broken arm. [9] [10] She was completing copy-edits in 2022. [11]

A Council of Dolls was an expansion of an earlier story about dolls published in the Missouri Review called Naming Ceremony. [12] [9] Naming Ceremony was runner-up for the 2020 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. [13] [14]

Release

Power held a launch party on publication day 8 August 2023 at the Birchbark Books event space Birchbark Bizhew in Minneapolis, Minnesota. [15]

Reception

Kirkus Reviews panned the book as "occasionally moving" but "steeped a little bit too long in sentimentality." [16] A starred review by Publishers Weekly calls it a "story of survival that shines brightly," and says Power reveals a "deep knowledge of Indigenous history" and the book is a "keen" and "wrenching" depiction of boarding schools. [17]

A Council of Dolls was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, and won the Minnesota Book Awards category for novels. [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

The novel was featured on New Yorkers Best Books of 2023 and Good Housekeeping recommended A Council of Dolls as part of their "feel-good reads." [23] [24]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Booker Prize</span> British literary award established in 1969

The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, which was published in the United Kingdom and/or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000, as well as international publicity that usually leads to a significant sales boost. When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014, eligibility was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Chidgey</span> New Zealand writer

Catherine Chidgey is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer and university lecturer. She has published eight novels. Her honours include the inaugural Prize in Modern Letters; the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton, France; Best First Book at both the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize ; the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards on two occasions; and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Bergen</span> Canadian writer

David Bergen is a Canadian novelist. He has published eleven novels and two collections of short stories since 1993 and is currently based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His 2005 novel The Time in Between won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and he was a finalist again in 2010 and 2020, making the long list in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laila Lalami</span> Moroccan-American writer, and professor (born 1968)

Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American novelist, essayist, and professor. After earning her licence ès lettres degree in Morocco, she received a fellowship to study in the United Kingdom (UK), where she earned an MA in linguistics.

Gail Jones is an Australian novelist and academic.

Amanda Frances Lillian Lohrey is an Australian writer and novelist.

Mona Susan Power is an American author from Chicago, Illinois. Her debut novel, The Grass Dancer (1994), received the 1995 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for Best First Fiction.

Oneworld Publications is a British independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Novin Doostdar and Juliet Mabey originally to publish accessible non-fiction by experts and academics for the general market. Based in London, it later added a literary fiction list and both a children's list and an upmarket crime list, and now publishes across a wide range of subjects, including history, politics, current affairs, popular science, religion, philosophy, and psychology, as well as literary fiction, crime fiction and suspense, and children's titles.

The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses is an annual British literary prize founded by the author Neil Griffiths. It rewards fiction published by UK and Irish small presses, defined as those with fewer than five full-time employees. The prize money – initially raised by crowdfunding and latterly augmented by sponsorship – is divided between the publishing house and the author.

<i>On Earth Were Briefly Gorgeous</i> 2019 novel by Ocean Vuong

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is the debut novel by Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong, published by Penguin Press on June 4, 2019. An epistolary novel, it is written in the form of a letter from a Vietnamese American son to his illiterate mother. It was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Stuart (writer)</span> Scottish writer (born 1976)

Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American writer and fashion designer. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he studied at the Scottish College of Textiles and London's Royal College of Art, before moving at the age of 24 to New York City, where he built a successful career in fashion design, while also beginning to write. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain – which had initially been turned down by many publishers on both sides of the Atlantic – was awarded the 2020 Booker Prize. His second novel, Young Mungo, was published in April 2022.

<i>Memorial</i> (novel) 2020 debut novel by Bryan Washington

Memorial is the debut novel by Bryan Washington. It was published by Riverhead Books on October 27, 2020, to acclaim from book critics.

<i>Shuggie Bain</i> 2020 novel by Douglas Stuart

Shuggie Bain is the debut novel by Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart, published in 2020. It tells the story of the youngest of three children, Shuggie, growing up with his alcoholic mother Agnes in 1980s post-industrial working-class Glasgow, Scotland.

<i>Sleeping on Jupiter</i> Novel by Anuradha Roy

Sleeping on Jupiter is a novel by Anuradha Roy. It is her third novel and was published by Hachette India on 15 April 2015. It was longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the 2015 The Hindu Literary Prize. It won the 2016 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

<i>Second Place</i> (novel) 2021 novel by Rachel Cusk

Second Place is a 2021 novel by Rachel Cusk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abundance (novel)</span> 2021 novel by Jakob Guanzon

Abundance is a 2021 novel by Jakob Guanzon about wealth inequality and human worth. It was published by Greywolf Press and is Guanzon's first novel. It covers concepts including inherited medical debt, poverty, food security, criminal justice system, and illegal drug trade. In 2021, the novel was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction and the Aspen Words Literary Prize.

<i>Bewilderment</i> 2021 novel by Richard Powers

Bewilderment is a 2021 novel by Richard Powers, published on September 21, 2021, by W. W. Norton & Company. It is Powers' thirteenth novel, his first since winning the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Overstory (2018).

<i>The Other Americans</i> 2019 novel by Laila Lalami

The Other Americans is a mystery novel written by Moroccan American novelist Laila Lalami. The novel was published in 2019 by Pantheon Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Jason Mott is an American novelist and poet. His fourth novel, Hell of a Book, won the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction.

References

  1. Young, Holly (8 August 2023). "Holly Young's post, A quick moment to relish..." Facebook. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 "A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power". HarperCollins. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  3. "About". Mona Susan Power.
  4. "National Book Awards Longlist 2023". The Washington Post. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  5. "A Council of Dolls". National Book Foundation . Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  6. "Book offers history through children's eyes". ICT News. 18 August 2023. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  7. Memmott, Carol (3 August 2023). "Review: Minneapolis writer explores the inanimate friends who save us in 'A Council of Dolls'". Star Tribune . Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  8. Nelson, Kate (20 November 2023). "Author Mona Susan Power Comes in From the Cold". The Cut . New York Magazine . Retrieved 21 November 2023.
  9. 1 2 "Author of "A Council of Dolls" joins WCCO Saturday Morning's". CBS News Minnesota . CBS Broadcasting Inc. 19 August 2023. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
  10. Greenblatt, Leah (7 August 2023). "After a Long and Painful Absence, Writing Her Way Home Again". The New York Times . Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  11. "In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Mona Susan Power". WaterStone Review . 12 September 2022. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  12. "A Council of Dolls Reading Group Kit" (PDF). HarperCollins. Mariner Books. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  13. Geger, Annalisa; Jensen, Kaitlyn (22 December 2023). "An Interview with Mona Susan Power". The Missouri Review. University of Missouri. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  14. Power, Mona Susan (18 April 2023). "Naming Ceremony". The Missouri Review . Curators of the University of Missouri. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  15. "Mona Susan Power: A Council of Dolls Publication Celebration". Eventbrite . Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  16. "A COUNCIL OF DOLLS | Kirkus Reviews". Kirkus Reviews. 8 June 2023.
  17. Letosky, Rachel (August 2023). "A Council of Dolls". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  18. "National Book Awards Longlist 2023". The Washington Post. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  19. "A Council of Dolls". National Book Foundation . Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  20. "Minnesota Book Awards Winners & Finalists". The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library. January 27, 2023. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  21. "2024 Longlist". Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. Retrieved April 9, 2024.
  22. Sparber, Max (May 8, 2024). "Minnesota Book Awards announces 2024 winners". MPR News . American Public Media . Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  23. Schumer, Lizz (2 November 2023). "All of Our Feel-Good Book Club Reviews". Good Housekeeping . Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  24. "Celebrate the holidays with an Indigenous gift guide". ICT News . The Arena Group. 6 December 2023. Retrieved 19 December 2023.