PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewReads by turns like a polemic, a manifesto, a history and a meditation ... Treuer repeatedly tells us what the Savage Mind is and what it does. Rather than an effective literary device, the repetition here is redundancy. The analogies and tautologies he uses to support his claims undermine them ... Much of this book is successful, and often brilliant. Treuer presents us with the complex and brutal history of the frontier ... Even more captivating are his personal memories: his college years, his fencing trials and successes, his romantic life and his relationship with his teacher Toni Morrison ... Often while reading it, I often wanted to dismiss Treuer’s work for what I think are literary failings. But I still find myself trying to understand it ... His book, perhaps, is of another order, and among those we can carry to a new frontier.
