#129. "Ghost Singer" by Anna Lee Walters

Throughout the course of American history, few things have been as shamefully ignored as the treatment of indigenous communities. Throughout Anna Lee Walters' "Ghost Singer," she focuses on the fact that this is a problem that doesn't exist only in life, but in death and through centuries of history. With emphasis on the unfair treatment of human remains, she creates a ghost story thats seeks to contemporize the conflict by making a figure whose presence symbolizes the disconnect between indigenous and white communities who try to find any way to maintain a beautiful harmony. The results is a powerful commentary on how even as time has gone on, there's still some things that are not close to being resolved and whose haunting present may be more difficult to lay to rest than initially believed. 
The titular ghost is a figure who appears to the different characters in their own symbolic ways. For white characters, it tends to be more of a conventional haunting, where archivists dealing with human remains are likey to end up tortured or even lead to suicide in attempts to right the wrongs of the past. Their handling of indigenous remains proves to be upsetting and as bodies become dismembered, it makes the effort to lay a body to rest in one piece all the more difficult. Walters writers without intent of having a convenient ending. What is there is a desire to reflect how Native American ideology feels about this event, and does so by using the ghost as a symbol of ancestors who haven't been properly laid to rest. There's some unsettling quality to it that forces everyone to consider if tampering with the sacred is ultimately a good call or not.

Meanwhile, the native characters are more likely to experience emotional turmoil. Even with characters driven to addiction and depression, the treatment of ghosts is something more related to identity here. Each of the characters' struggles revel in a struggle to feel like the past is at peace and that what they have been told by others. What is history when it has been assimilated by somebody else's more intolerant narrative? As both stories intersect, they become more of a study of Native American history in the United States that brings up very significant issues and attempts to add emotional provocation and activism to the subtext even while reveling in an ending that lacks a completely clear read. If anything, it shows how difficult it is for these issues to be resolved in a meaningful manner quickly. It will take years, maybe even generations to fully resolve.

"Ghost Singer" is a great read that turns the ghost story into something unique and full of life. By focusing on a part of history that hasn't been discussed enough, Walters has managed to find a topic that holds different meaning depending on who is reading it. How do we let the sins of the past haunt our current existence? What are we doing to put them to rest? The answer is not always convenient, but it's only in doing so that Walters makes something that grows into something greater. This is a tale with interesting characters and staggering passages that pull at the reader. It would be difficult to think that anyone gets to the end and not feel like there needs to be some change. It's a ghost story that's as real as the conflict it describes. What are we going to do to make things better? Luckily for activists, there's been measures made to remedy that, though as the story suggested decades ago, we're still far off from the finish line - if there even is a satisfying one to find.