In Amanda Skenandore’s provocative and profoundly
moving debut, set in the tragic intersection between white
and Native American culture, a young girl learns about
friendship, betrayal, and the sacrifices made in the name of
belonging. On a quiet Philadelphia morning in 1906, a newspaper
headline catapults Alma Mitchell back to her past. A federal
agent is dead, and the murder suspect is Alma’s childhood
friend, Harry Muskrat. Harry—or Asku, as Alma knew him—was
the most promising student at the “savage-taming” boarding
school run by her father, where Alma was the only white
pupil. Created in the wake of the Indian Wars, the Stover
School was intended to assimilate the children of
neighboring reservations. Instead, it robbed them of
everything they’d known—language, customs, even their
names—and left a heartbreaking legacy in its wake. The bright, courageous boy Alma knew could never have
murdered anyone. But she barely recognizes the man Asku has
become, cold and embittered at being an outcast in the white
world and a ghost in his own. Her lawyer husband, Stewart,
reluctantly agrees to help defend Asku for Alma’s sake. To
do so, Alma must revisit the painful secrets she has kept
hidden from everyone—especially Stewart. Told in compelling narratives that alternate between Alma’s
childhood and her present life, Between Earth and Sky
is a haunting and complex story of love and loss, as a quest
for justice becomes a journey toward understanding and,
ultimately, atonement.
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