The Indian Lawyer by James Welch

The Indian Lawyer Reviews

• 
  Don J.

  I will hand my Creative Writing degree track this: it opened me up to a plethora of authors and genres that I would have never previously looked twice at. "The Indian Lawyer" is one such book that I may have never looked at had it not been assigned to me. And the result...is gratitude.
  
  This book gives readers a unique perspective on what it means to be a Native American in modern America, or more accurately, what it's like to be a successful one. Sylvester Yellow Calf, a successful lawyer who grows up on the poverty-stricken streets of Browning, Montana, must come to terms with his double-life. His success alienates him from his own people while thrusting him in the midst of a world that that treats him as an outsider. I wont spoil anything, but readers have a great opportunity to step into the shoes of "the other" and experience the pain and strife that comes with it.
  
  On another note, Welch's use of third-person perspective is top-notch. He often switches perspectives to allow readers to view the conflict from different perceptions; while that isn't uncommon, Welch makes sure to insert every characters' biases, experiences, and fears into it --so you really are able to see where everyone is coming from. He also possesses a rare ability to shift seamlessly from exposition to narrative, so well you often don't even realize its happened until he jumps you back to when it first transitioned. Welch is a fine talent and if you are interested in a solid, well-crafted read, pick it up.
• 
  Brian

  The Indian Lawyer is an example of a good story that doesn't try to do too much. There are only a few key plot twists to make things interesting, but otherwise just an emphasis on the characters and the story. I also liked that the book felt "real." The references to legal concepts, and Indian law concepts in particular, felt authentic. The setting also felt authentic and Welch is particularly talented at describing and using the location and geography to contribute to the story. Descriptions felt "real" in much the same way that Walter Mosley's descriptions of L.A. and the Bay Area do. The incorporation of Montana cities and reservations into the story added to its effectiveness and kept me interested throughout.
• 
  April

  A damn good book. A stunning portrait of the human condition. As haunting and unnerving as it is fascinating and thrilling. Along the lines of Anuradha Roy's An Atlas of Impossible Longing and John Steinbeck's East of Eden, The Indian Lawyer is a reminder of the old adage, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave." There isn't a hero or a villain, everyone is flawed but also humanized in an extremely detailed way.
  
  It's a modern Prince and the Pauper-esque exploration of race and class and gender. Jack Harwood and Sylvester Yellow Calf are both intelligent Native American males who grew up on the reservation, yet one's been in prison for eight years and the other is a successful lawyer in a prestigious Helena firm.
  
  This novel is completely engrossing. I knew from the beginning that things were possibly going to end tragically but the characters were so fully human and the writing so good that I had to finish, regardless. It actually wasn't that tragic in the end! Nice. I'm so glad I read this book.
  
  Trigger warnings: rape, substance use/abuse, verbal abuse.
• 
  Ron

  First published in 1990, this is a thoughtful and suspenseful novel by a Native American writer from Montana. I had previously read his Winter in the Blood (1974) and The Death of Jim Loney (1979). All three novels concern the complexities of living as an Indian in a white-dominated world.
  
  Unlike the struggling social cast-offs in the earlier novels, the protagonist of The Indian Lawyer has by all appearances successfully assimilated to white culture. Sylvester Yellow Calf has parlayed statewide recognition on the high school basketball court into a university education and law school. He is now one of the rising members of a high-end law firm in Helena...
  
  Read my review at
  my blog.
• 
  Jo

  I loved The Indian Lawyer. I found it difficult to put down. Just one more chapter, I kept telling myself, and before I knew it, I'd read 100 pages in one sitting.
  
  This is tight, well-paced, engrossing storytelling. Sylvester and Patti Ann are particularly well-drawn characters. Patti Ann's loneliness and vulnerability are palpable, and Sylvester's ambivalence about his life as a successful lawyer is explored with great sensitivity.
  
  In James Welch's hands, the Montana landscape springs to life as vividly as do the lives of the recently-released ex-cons who aim to wreak havoc in Sylvester's congressional run.
  
  Sometimes when circumstances beyond your control derail your best-laid plans, you unexpectedly find yourself exactly where you need to be.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Glen

  Sylvester Yellow Calf is a Blackfeet Indian attorney, former basketball star in the state of Montana, is about to be made into a full partner in a Helena firm of renown in the state, and plans to run for the state legislature. He also serves on the state board for pardons and paroles, and it is that last fact that makes him the object of a blackmail attempt that drives the action for most of this novel. Sylvester is the flawed hero of this interesting tale, a tale I found a bit slow in the telling and somewhat unsatisfying in its resolution. That said, I liked the fact that the author built the narrative around characters that are anything but stereotypical while not denying nor sidestepping the challenges of poverty, racism, and despair facing many native peoples in the United States. Welch knows well whereof he writes.
• 
  Margaret

  Sylvester Yellow Calf is a complicated character, abandoned by his parents, raised by loving grandparents who were very connected to his Blackfeet tribe, a basketball star in college, and as the book opens, he's a lawyer at a fancy private firm in Helena. Making his way up in the world. He's sort of involved with a former Senator's daughter and is contemplating a run for Congress. Then...he gets tangled up in the life story of Jack Harwood, former accountant turned bank robber who is languishing in prison, not sure he will survive. There's lots of casual racism towards Sylvester, and the other Indians in the book. What I liked about this book was how it left some things messy...Sylvester sort of gets back in touch with his roots, but there's plenty of ambivalence about it. Still, there are some oddly flat, stereotypical parts to the story, and some completely incredible sequences. And the scenery...reading Montana landscapes oddly comforting while staying in place in Phila.
  This book is on the Little Free Library Pandemic Reading list.
• 
  Sherrill Watson

  See April's review and Larry Stratner's review.
  
  The scenes in Montana are beautiful. Poor Sylvester Yellow Calf, he's trapped in intrigues he can't move out of. He's such a passive player, not a loudmouth lawyer with a red tie, as most of them are. He's a man of quiet principle, without a huge flaw, and so, he's trapped. I found the ending satisfyingly, but had very little empathy for him. He COULD have blown things wide open, but didn't. He just crawled off and became a limp lawyer in nowhere. I hope he patches things up with Lena.
• 
  Greta

  James Welch writes a believable story about a young Blackfoot basketball star from Browning, Montana who goes on to earn advanced degrees and practice law in Helena, Montana. His race makes him unique in the largely white world of law, parole boards and politics as practiced in Montana. Unfortunately he is targeted by some very self serving, selfish, dangerous criminals and may loose everything.
• 
  EB Fitzsimons

  Very much evocative of a certain time (late 80s/ early nineties) and place (the West), Welch's writing is intimately connected to nature and the modern world of office drudgery and parole boards. Even the small missteps (a bit of clunky dialogue or overwrought emotion) make it so much more sincere, and sometimes beautifully revelatory.
• 
  Toni Reese

  I might have given this book a 4-star rating had I not already read Fools Crow and The Heartsong of Charging Elk. Fools Crow is one of my most favorite books I've ever read, and Heartsong was very good too. The Indian Lawyer, though, just didn't do a whole lot for me.
• 
  Alexandra

  3.5
• 
  Malika-Liki

  a wonderful story. a great description of Human Nature, the littleness of people, the almost falling of grace, I loved evey page, a Great Book and a wonderful stoty teller and Author
• 
  Roger

  One of very best works of fiction I've ever read.
• 
  Thegirlintheafternoon

  Task: Popsugar Reading Challenge 2018 - Nordic Native noir - 4/5 stars
  
  I picked this up on a whim, and holy crap, I'm so glad I did! What a writer. Tense and psychologically acute throughout.
• 
  Zeynep

  DNF.School made read it but I got bored and didn’t finish it. Might come back later...
• 
  Larry Strattner

  I bought this book based upon its title, since I have been doing research into Native American culture for something I am writing.
  The book was surprising since it was almost proceedural in nature yet had absolutely no predictable turns or pat solutions. Every time I felt as if I might predict an outcome it did not develop.
  
  I read many thrillers, particularly series, and it might be a slight exaggeration, but this story follows what I might call the "steps" of such a story without delivering any of the set-piece outcomes.
  
  Many of the story's emotional/thoughtful moments are penetrating and provoking.
  The ending in particular is gently suprising and somehow "right." I found the book engaging, thought-provoking and satisfying. If you like character-centered stories this is a very good read.
• 
  Sam

  For so many reasons, I'm ashamed to say that this is my first James Welch novel. I had heard of Welch while in high school, but having been in college for so long I'm only just starting to get back into reading non-assigned texts.
  
  Having said that, what an amazingly talented Montana author! Although there is no true villain or hero, Welch portrays endearing, flawed characters throughout the novel. As a Montanan, Welch was able to portray not only his characters, but the social and political dynamics of the state as well. The assumptions, the conflicts, the conversations - they all rang true in my mind, almost 25 years later. To be able to paint such a true and endearing portrait is a rare talent, and he was one.
• 
  David Jordan

  Interesting portrait of Sylvester Yellow Calf, a Blackfoot Indian who has risen from reservation poverty to become a college basketball star, Stanford Law School grad, prosperous attorney, Montana parole board member and potential congressional candidate. Despite his successes, Yellow Calf sees himself as an interloper in white society and perhaps a phony. His life starts to unravel when a convict’s wife sets out to seduce him so he can be blackmailed into releasing her husband. Hampered by a limp denouement to the blackmail plot. Welch, who died in 2003, was a Montana Blackfoot and, like Sherman Alexie and Louis Erdrich, a prominent figure in Native American lit.
• 
  alicia

  I rather like Welch's prose but I didn't like how he jumped around in regards to POV. It was third person POV throughout the book but he changed the subject often. We got at least 10 different characters POV's but there was never a new chapter to mark this. One paragraph would be Sylvester and then the next sentence would be Patti, it frustrated me a lot. I did like the idea of Sylvester's life but I thought the extortion plot wasn't essential. It could've been a lot stronger had it just been about his struggles as a lawyer and budding congressmen.
• 
  Alyssa

  This book was… bland. Because Jim Welch is a poet, I expected much much more from him. However, I only got concrete details and a story skeleton. If you want to learn some small facts about Native American tradition and the ongoing racism against them, this book might help you… or you might lose interest in your adventure all together. “The Indian Lawyer” describes the life of Sylvester Yellow Calf and his struggle with home and not home, who he is and who he is supposed to be, and, of course as all great Native American stories must have, complex sex with white women. I don’t recommend it.
• 
  Della Scott

  I often recommend this to people who want to read books about prison life, since much of it takes places in the Montana State penentiary in Deer Lodge, also for pwople who like books about women married to, or romantically involved with, men in prison.