Sam, hero of Turtle Belly, is a mixed blood with skin the color of a turtle's belly. In this coming-of-age story, Joel Monture describes Sam's struggle to form an identity that combines his violent father's white world & his mother's traditional Mohawk culture. Attempting to escape her abusive husband, Sam's mother takes her six-year-old son to live with his cousin Ellie & her family on the Six Nations Reserve. There Sam learns the ways & stories of ancestors he has never known, & he learns to trust in the love & loyalty of family. Stories of the Little People, the Old Ones, & the Three Sisters capture the young boy's imagination, & Sam learns to express his views by painting - a talent that eventually earns him a scholarship to Dartmouth College. Coming full circle, Sam must now learn the ways of the white world in order to survive. Monture is a gifted storyteller. His tale of Sam's spiritual & sexual awakening is peopled with memorable characters: Elle, the courageous earth mother; Old Jonas, who teaches Sam about ritual & meaning in everyday life; & Sam's father, a fearful presence in his memory, who returns for a climactic confrontation with his son.

Reservation poverty, Indian sovereignty, burials & archaeology, alcoholism, religion, sexuality, & domestic violence are among the issues Monture explores frankly, compassionately, & with wry humor. Traveling with Sam, the reader will grow to understand his old Aunt Molly's words: "It's not different circles we're traveling but one great big circle. We just enter the race at different times." VOLUME 25 IN THE AMERICAN INDIAN LITERATURE & CRITICAL STUDIES SERIES. JOEL MONTURE is a free-lance writer & a traditional Native American storyteller & beadwork artist. A former professor of Traditional Native American Art at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, he is a consultant on material culture & the author of The Complete Guide to Traditional Native American Beadwork & Cloudwalker: Contemporary Native American Stories. "Monture's prose is vibrant with life, & his descriptions are as vivid & clear as an Ansel Adams photograph."--Joseph Bruchac, Editor, The Greenfield Review.