I'm skidding in right at the tail end of Color Online's diversity challenge but I wanted to point out Mattox Rosesch's Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same as it is a book about life in rural Alaska, something you pretty much never read about. As far as I know, the author is not a POC however the book is about a half Latino/half Native Alaskan teen who relocates to Unalakleet with his Native mother after his brother goes to jail for murder. (The father is only occasionally in the picture.) To say that Cesar suffers a culture shock of epic proportions would be a vast understatement and much of the book is about his struggle to come to terms with life in the Bush. It's also about his troubled cousin "Go-Boy" (a nickname) who switches from joy to suicidal depression all too quickly and leaves Cesar in the unlikely position of savior.

I came to Same-Same with an enormous amount of skepticism. While I've never been specifically to Unalaska (my husband has a ton of times) I have been to the village and I had serious doubts about anyone white or from Outside being able to write an honest book about this place and the people who live there. What persuaded me to even read it was that Roesch (from Minneapolis) lives in Unalakleet with his wife. (I'd love to know why they live there - he doesn't say anything about that at his site and honestly he needs to get some advice about his blog. It's deadly dull and he's wasting a huge opportunity by not writing about where he lives.) What I found was everything I already knew: that it's remote which is both wonderful and difficult; that fishing is a central part of life; that the community is very close (which is both good and bad); that alcoholism and depression lead to violence and tragedy and that for some people it is the best place in the world while for others it must be left behind.

In other words, rural Alaska is complicated and Roesch gets that and he gets all the specifics as well.

The biggest surprise though was probably Cesar who I thought would just be a convenient ploy to show all the many unusual things about village life. But he has an amazing backstory - a devastating backstory in fact - and the more Roesch reveals about it the more I was blown away. What you figure out is that LA, which is the "world" in so many respects, carries its own brand of deadliness and horror - but so does Unalakleet. Cesar and Go-Boy each have to figure out how to survive and to live with the choices they make and the thing they have done. It's a very hopeful book though, even with its sorrows, which is probably the most honest way in which it portrays its setting. I knew many many "Go-Boys" when I worked at the Company, and some of them didn't make it. But I don't know if you can blame the village for that, or just the world in general. In other words, I don't know that taking a baby from the Bush and putting him in a Seattle family guarantees him a better life then another baby who grows up in the village. This is something Roesch explores deeply in his story and I loved it - I loved it a lot.

It's an honest look at contemporary Alaska Native and Alaska village life which are probably two of the most invisible aspects of living in America. A full review will run in my December column and the ARC was sent my way by the publisher, the fabulous Unbridled Books.

[Post pics of Unalakleet.]