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A Prejudiced Resentment: American Cultures in Recovery

by Bob EagleClaw Parkins

262 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1143; ISBN 1-4120-3316-0; US$22.95, C$29.00, EUR18.85, £13.06

Born in a coal camp in West Virginia, of mixed European, Cherokee and Shaunee bloodlines, EagleClaw cum Dr. Parks discovers spiritual growth through government civil rights prosecution...

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about the book      about the author      excerpt      catalogue info

About the Book A fourth-generation Appalachian American Indian is falsely charged criminally for environmental sampling crimes after federal and state government bureaucrats nurse a prejudice resentment. He is a survivor and relies on his spiritually-based culture and in the process acheives a greater goal-spiritual growth while living in the European dominant culture in America.

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About the Author Bob EagleClaw (his Native name) Parkins holds a Ph. D. in Administration and Management; a Master of Science, Environmental Studies, and a BA in History. This is his first novel, although he has been writing most of his adult life, including as a former newspaper reporter for the the Charleston Gazette; short stories; technical and professional published articles. Other categories of writing range from proposed legislation to, as this autobiographical novel suggests, legal documents. He is an environmental hazardous materials and site-studies scientist; has been an environmental science adjunct professor the past seven years at Wheeling Jesuit University; and teaches periodically at other locations on the environment and other topics. He has three grown children and three grandchildren.

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Excerpt

THREE CIRCLES OF Appalachian cultures and history; a spiritually- based recovery; and, a modern-day political theme combine to complete for the reader a circle of human experience in this truly historical novel.

For the first time, Appalachian Indian history, and the resulting clash with Western European culture, are elucidated. This region of mountains running the entire northsouth length of the United States served for over 100 years as a cultural and historical fortress called the American eastern frontier. That history is written not by facts-and dates by the traditional European style, but instead in the Native American style of cycles and circles called trends of history and cultures.

A memoir-inspired political theme in today's world reveals that history in Appalachee -the Native name meaning "unending mountains" - repeats itself. The cultural clashes of 200 years ago through today finds the people in a spiritually-based culture of recovery - both from their own history and from themselves.

The three epics of history, politics and spirituality - not religious - recovery, combine to complete a triangle and circle of information for the reader.

History and spirituality are not often good bedfellows, but they are both good experiences in this holistic and integrated novel, perhaps because they represent a whole person's life. Based on the life of EagleClaw, the Native name of Dr. Bob EagleClaw Parkins, born in a coal camp in West Virginia and destined to always "land on his feet" in life, this main character's life story carries the epic now being compared to a North American sequel to Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. And once again out of the hills of Appalachia comes a real life experience of recovery superceding even the known theme of A Beautiful Mind.

It has been said that this country was not founded on the Ten Commandments. It was founded on killing and taking land from Indians. And that extreme denial is amazing. And "it" is amazing - the factual truth that continues in that land called Appalachia into now.

Those three circles of information come together in this autobiographical production labelled A Prejudiced Resentment and subtitled American Cultures in Recovery.

Any real or imaginary relationship in the novel to historical characters is just that - a characterization. The author reveals through these characterizations the spiritual axiom that Creator's Will, or Providence, occurs with or without those characters of our uniquely Appalachian American history. Thus, for the reader, a cultural and historical feast may be experienced in that circular process described in Native American culture as "...absolutely everything that goes around, comes around." -the author

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A fourth-generation Appalachian American Indian is falsely charged criminally for environmental sampling crimes after federal and state government bureaucrats nurse a prejudiced resentment. He is a survivor and relies on his spiritually-based culture. He recovers from both addiction and from the dominant, fear-based culture and in the process acheives a greater goal-spiritual growth, while living in the European dominant culture in America.

That cultural clash of the Native American spiritually-based culture thrust upon his ancestors with the fear-based dominant culture in Appalachia is the study of this novel.

Three circles of a modern-day political experience; the location in that former American eastern frontier with its Native American history, culture, spirituality, Appalachia; and recovery, all with an attendant cultural blowback, complete this truly American novel.

A Prejudiced Resentment, subtitled American Cultures in Recovery, is a must-read for any American who wants to get a handle on the cultural landscape in this country today.
Chris Georgio

"EagleClaw" is Everyman. The author has captured a "Life 101" experience culturally, spiritually and politically. It is mature fiction in a life of a mixed-blood still living in Appalachia, yet is the essence of the American experience today. It is a must-read novel for anything thinking American."

"As an Expert Witness, every professional in the field accepts a First Amendment right to simply go to the courtroom and tell the truth as he knows it. But when the power of the U.S. Government is unleashed against that expert witness in later circumstances, that abuse of power by its very actions places a chilling vapor over that Constitutional freedom. It has taken this novel out of Appalachian Mountain hinterlands to let us all know that truth. Every lawyer and expert witness and citizen concerned today with basic civil rights as we presume them will want to read this culturally entertaining novel for that purpose alone. As a published author, the prospect is a scary one for all of us in the court systems today.

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Catalogue Information

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