Book Review: Black Hills by Dan Simmons

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Black Hills (2010) is yet another great Dan Simmons novel. He continually amazes me with his variety of genres, subject matter and his deep research. This is historical fiction with a fantastic twist, and I loved it. The action starts immediately in 1876 as an 11-year-old Sioux boy happens to be on the battlefield at Little Big Horn during Custer’s Last Stand just as Custer dies in front of him, and Custer’s ghost enters into him and haunts him for decades, providing insightful dialogue between the two personalities/cultures. The boy’s Sioux name is Paha Sapa (meaning “Black Hills”), and it is his story that we follow – with Custer’s ghost trailing along. Native American Indian worldviews, mythologies, visions, sentiments and complex histories are well-respected and well-represented throughout this story.
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Custer’s history is well researched. Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the massacre at Wounded Knee are part of the story, and their histories are presented well. We are swept along through general American history, all within Paha Sapa’s experiences, as the Indians’ day is over and the white man’s story is ascendant. The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge is detailed far to the east. The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair is an important setting in the plot, along with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. The ambitious 20th century project of carving Mt. Rushmore by the visionary Gutzon Borglum is also integral to Paha Sapa’s story.
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Simmons’ vision of Native American Indians is extremely sympathetic and respectful, but it is not mindless or politically correct (thank the Great Spirit!) because he is not afraid to be historically accurate rather than just being a wishful thinker about it. Many well-established historical points may not be so easily accepted by primitivist mythologizers: i.e., when Simmons writes of the “fun” of war for Plains Indians, and of the Sioux as “a ruthless, relentless invasion machine,” attacking other Indian tribes and pushing them off their traditional lands (p.429). (It is also noted that the whites are just as bad with their own relentless warfare, soon becoming worldwide.) It is admitted that the Plains Indians often stampeded buffalo herds over cliffs (buffalo drops), killing them by the hundreds, just to cut out a select liver (or tongue) from the top layer of carcasses and leaving the rest to rot. It was not just the Euro-Americans who wasted natural resources that seemed to be without limit. No race or culture is promoted over another here; instead we find a common, complex, understandable human history, weird as it may turn out to be.
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One thing extra I like about this novel – besides its usual Simmons genius – is the appreciation for wilderness and natural settings, which Simmons describes so well. That speaks to me personally in a powerful way. Paha Sapa sees the ever-encroaching growth of human settlement and development as a grim inevitability, but he still sees the spirit of natural beauty left. And in the end he can still say: “This is a good day to live.”
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-Zenwind.
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