Review: Swim Home to the Vanished

Swim Home to the Vanished by Brendan Shay Basham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fort Vancouver Regional Library has always been very good at spotlighting unique books for Native American Heritage Month, which is how I found this book and its eye-catching cover art. I’ve never been all that partial to magical realism, but this book made the style work pretty well, all things considered. It’s not a feel good book, most definitely not, but it does a good job of blending surreal dreamlike quality, verbose prose, and a general feeling of dissociation from the world. I’d say that the most powerful aspect for me, though, was how Damien didn’t speak Diné bizaad all that well - I can relate if only because I’m also still largely unable to speak my own little-known ancestral language. But it’s not for nothing that Tommy Orange took note and blurbed this one, so I’ll for sure keep an eye out for new Brendan Shay Basham books in the future.

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