Stone Song, nominee for the Pulitzer and winner of the Spur Award, is the classic, and extraordinarily told, story of the Lakota Sioux mystic warrior, Crazy Horse. Of all the iconic figures of Native American history, Crazy Horse remains the most enigmatic. To this day he strides across American history as a man who lived—and died—on his own terms.
Ridiculed as a boy for his white-man looks, he called for a vision, and received a great one. He was to fight for his people. In order to be successful, he must not accept traditional Lakota finery, rewards, and he would sacrifice the dream of a wife and children. By following his vision, and his destiny of that as a mystic warrior, he led his people to their greatest victory—the defeat of General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
“This novel is a genuine masterpiece. I can’t imagine any book—past, present, or future, novel or biography—that can ever approach it in giving the reader a sense of who this mysterious man really was and what he stood for.” — Rocky Mountain News
Charbonneau, Man of Two Dreams is the story of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacajawea. As an infant, he traveled from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean on his mother’s back as she guided Lewis and Clark. When he was a child, Sacajawea sent her son to William Clark. He had a posh Jesuit schooling in St. Louis, and was later educated in Europe, the welcome guest of kings.
But Charbonneau was a man of two dreams, and Western wilderness pulled at his heart. Home. He became an American explorer, guide, fur trapper and trader, military scout, alcalde (mayor) of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, a gold prospector, and a hotel operator in Northern California. He spoke French and English, German, Spanish, Shosone and other western Native languages. Most of all, Charbonneau had the amazing good fortune to find, and choose, his own life. An authentic life.
CHARBONNEAU is a novel of epic scope and lyric intensity, of vivid human drama and vigorous adventure!
“A gripping historical novel. Blevins weaves documented material with the fruits of an impressive empathy. The characters live not only as recognizable people in their times and places, but as figures in an allegory of the West. There is beautiful writing here . . . Blevins beings it all alive!” – Los Angeles Times