Ceremony By Leslie Marmon Silko
Ceremony By Leslie Marmon Silko Tayo is an Indigenous Laguna man. After he returns from being held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese in WWII, without his cousin with whom he enlisted, Tayo struggles with PTSD. He grew up with his aunt after his mother left him there as a child. Tayo is half-white and has always felt estranged from his family and community, but this feeling is heightened after the war. He feels an emptiness in the alcohol and violence the other Laguna war veterans take solace in. Tayo even spends some time in a psychiatric hospital because of his fear and delusions of being in the war. His is grandmother sets him up with a shaman to perform a ceremony to help him. The quote below sums up the story and its messages perfectly. It is quoted from a review by Yelisa Leiva at Foggy Pine Books. https://www.foggypinebooks.com/reviews/ceremony-book-review#/ "Tayo must return to his roots to recover from not only the war he had fought in, but the war within him...