Anna Redsand

 

 

WHAT CREVICE IS ABOUT

 

Crevice is a memoir in thirteen related, stand-alone essays, seven of which have been previously published. The stories and reflections tell about the life of a White girl, and later an adult, living within the fissure that lies between Diné (Navajo) and Bilagáana (White) cultures. In that place, I belonged and didn't belong; it was Home Not Home. The stories are about what I saw from within the cleft that existed between the two worlds, which was often different from what either Diné or Bilagáanas saw from either side of that space. It is about what that was like in the fifties and sixties when I was a child and life was simply that—life. My life. It is about what I am left with now in the twenty-first century—both richness and poverty. It is about grappling with my settler heritage, the riches I was given in my time in Dinétah, and about the obligations that perhaps come with those experiences. It is about what I have created and hope still to create from both of my inheritances. Each essay reflects in some way on the identity that evolves when someone spends a lifetime between distinctly different cultures. The far-reaching effects of colonization and occupation that continue today in Dinétah are an unavoidable part of the landscape and necessarily play a significant role in my observations and thoughts.

Part I, "Ground," contains four essays that recreate early days in the author's life, moving in each case from childhood into adulthood. "Fissures and Crenellations," the first piece, situates the reader in Dinétah and shows for the first time the land of In Between. "In and Out" is about the exigencies of boarding school life as lived by a White girl, as viewed by me, and as told to me by my Diné friends. "Some Things Were True" is about both Diné and Bilagáana beliefs and practices regarding death—about what was real in both cultures and what perhaps was not, about sameness and difference. "In the Girls Room" shows how, throughout my life, I have parsed what others and I observed of my parents' contrasting ways as guests in Dinétah. It tells how I have attempted to make sense of what I heard and saw and to find my own path in that land.

Part II, "Self," contains five essays and has a particular focus on the search for identity. "Border Town," a hybrid essay, shows the everyday devastation that exists in and because of towns that border the Navajo Nation. It tells of the nature of borders, about how I tried to find my place in Gallup, New Mexico, a town on the edge of the Nation—the town that in many ways describes who I am. Four further essays address questions of identity that have persisted into my adulthood. "Naturalization" is about how an interracial partnership of seven years left an imprint on my interactions with my Black college students. "A Good Stranger" is a braided essay that explores a search for spiritual identity within the milieu of three distinct cultural identities––Diné, Jewish, and Evangelical Protestant. "Tongues" is an experimental essay, exploring human and animal existence through the multiple meanings in multiple languages––denotative, connotative, and idiomatic––of the word "tongue." In "The Importance of Clear" I discover through the lens of language that I may possess a lasting identity of my own.

Part III, "Passage," offers the final four essays and moves the writer and hence the reader toward resolution. "Racial Injustice Benefited Me" is a flash essay that details a very small number of ways in which systemic racism benefited me as a child living in the Navajo Nation. In "Being Third" I examine Other as a possible identity, taking a path away from binary thinking. "The Obligation" examines the idea that those who have inhabited the cracks and crevices of society may be uniquely equipped to bridge our many cultural gaps—that in fact, we may have a duty to do so. "A Reckoning," the final essay in the collection, represents a coming to terms with just what is my place in the worlds I've inhabited and a recognition of who I am within the fissure between them.

 

WHAT READERS SAY ABOUT CREVICE

 

I would call Anna Redsand's book "White Rez Kid" because that's what it's about––not just the White kid who grew up on the Rez, but how the Rez is part of her life now––how her unique perspective has risen from the crevice that lies between cultures. Diné and Bilagáana people both need to hear Anna's voice.
     ~ Gloria J. Emerson (Diné), At the Hems of the Lowest Clouds: Meditations on Navajo Landscapes
 
In Crevice: A Life Between Worlds, Anna blends a deeply personal memoir with a wisdom and grace that resonates beyond the particulars of her own story. I was in tears by the end of the first page, in an exhale of relief and recognition. This book offers a clear-eyed gaze on the deeply complex experience of growing up in a 'home not home'. Beautifully blending memories and searing self-inquiry, Anna offers important insights into the ways in which the politics of colonialization, and spiritual exceptionalism infiltrate the daily lived experience of so many Third Culture Kids. I especially appreciated her sensitive observations around language, the grief and loss that so many experience when caught in the 'mine not mine' whirlpool of power dynamics surrounding this most basic vehicle of human connectedness. Anna uses her story to offer gentle accompaniment to all those who will recognize their own stories in her own, but she goes beyond this to invite us to consider the best question of all, 'now what?' In sharing her own processes around navigating restorative belonging as 'A Good Stranger', she offers the best kind of guidance to those of us seeking to find our own way – the guidance of one who has walked before us. 
     ~ Rachel Cason, Incredible Lives and the Courage to Live Them: Thoughts of a Third Culture Kid Therapist
 
Crevice is a tender excavation of a life lived between cultures, not only from the perspective of a white woman raised by Calvinist missionaries on the Navajo Reservation, but of a lesbian growing up in straight culture. Ever the seeker, the content of Redsand's essays is rare, the perspective even rarer, and the hard-won insights she arrives at are all the more valuable for it. 
     ~ Gabriel Kruis, Acid Virga
 
In Crevice, Anna Redsand graces us with a memoir that is so much more than the genre implies. It is a meditation on family, on belonging in community, and on language, but it is also a paean to the Diné (Navajo) culture she grew up in and an apology for the practices of her Calvinist missionary parents who sought to quash the culture she loved. The gorgeous prose of Crevice—somehow, miraculously, both vivid and spare—moves seamlessly from youthful recollections to present-day reflections. Diné friendships help Redsand see that there is "more than one pathway to the Infinite," contrary to the lockstep religious teachings of her parents. The mission school forbids use of the Navajo language, Diné bizaad, which she wishes to learn, and later in life the author realizes "when we take something from one group of people, everyone loses."A Diné family friend gives the author a childhood name that translates to Girl Who Reaches After Things. The book is an elegant and eloquent reaching, a bridge spanning the crevice between the Diné world Redsand wishes she could completely belong to and the hybrid world of "Home Not Home" she makes peace with accepting as hers. 
     ~ Tracy Robert, Judge for the Kenneth Johnston Nonfiction Book Award 2024 for Choeofpleirn Press

 

ESSAYS IN THE COLLECTION PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED 

 

• "Fissures and Crenellations" was first published in Solstice.
• "In and Out" was first published in Isthmus.
• "Naturalization was first published in Clockhouse.
• "A Good Stranger" was first published in Isthmus.
• "Tongues" was first published in Fertile: An Anthology of Earth Poems and Prose from the High Desert and Mountains of the Four Corners Region.
• "Racial Injustice Benefited Me" was first published in The Gallup Independent.
• "The Obligation" was first published in DoveTales.

 

RECOGNITION

 

• Winner of the Kenneth Johnston Nonfiction Book Award 2024 for Choeofpleirn Press

• Semi-finalist in the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize Contest 2024

• Named by Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) in its Reading List for Pride Month 2025