Greg Sarros Transforms Experiences, Tribal Tales Into Works Of Fiction

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Greg Sarris will read from "Watermelon Nights" at Northwest Bookfest at 3 p.m. Sunday on the US West Maclean Stage. He joins Sherman Alexie, who will read from his new collection of poetry, "The Man Who Loved Salmon." -------------------------------

Since 1992, Greg Sarris has been working to restore the traditional lands of his tribe, the Federated Coast Miwok Tribe in California. It is a quest, he explains, to reclaim the tribe's history and its soul.

But for Sarris, the journey to this spiritual homeland involves much more than Congress' stamp of approval. Redemption has come through writing fiction as well. So this 41-year-old tribal chairman has taken on the endeavor of transforming the oral histories of his gritty childhood - the tales told by women around kitchen tables - into literature, and more.

His latest literary venture and first novel is "Watermelon Nights" (Hyperion, $24.95), an achingly poignant and brutal tale that chronicles three generations of Waterplace Pomo Indians in Northern California. This weekend at Northwest Bookfest Sarris, will read from his new work.

"I was not a person who thought all my life I wanted to (write fiction)," explained Sarris, whose collection of short stories, "Grand Avenue," debuted his writing talent a few years ago. "But I was steeped in oral stories from the time I was young."

Sarris' own life reads like an epic saga of uncanny

circumstances, and it is from this storm of experiences that he has pieced together the characters of his fictional works.

The product of what was considered a socially unacceptable love, he was born in secrecy in Santa Rosa, Calif., to an upper-class 16-year-old girl of German-Jewish descent, who gave him up for adoption and died not long afterward. His biological father, as he learned later in adulthood, had been of Filipino and Coast Miwok and Kashaya Pomo Indian heritage.

Sarris, who was adopted by a white couple, sought refuge from a violent, abusive father and spent much of his youth living with Santa Rosa's working-class Indian families - many of whom, he realized only later, were blood relatives. In the 11th grade, Sarris traded in his rough street life for the classroom. He graduated from high school among the top students and eventually earned two master's degrees and a Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University.

In "Watermelon Nights," Sarris bears witness to the lives of Santa Rosa's Indians - a displaced people living in the run-down neighborhood of South Park. Narrated by a fictional grandson, grandmother and mother, "Watermelon Nights" depicts in sometimes excruciating detail a rocky struggle against bigotry, poverty and violence, tragically riddled with self-hatred.

"In the face of colonialism, the biggest enemy is self-hatred, how we've learned to hate ourselves and pass that down in our own forms," Sarris said. "None of us is going to survive unless we deal with it."

Sarris adeptly weaves in stinging ironies and a dark sense of humor. He begins the novel in the voice of Johnny Severe, a 20-year-old, who, blessed with his grandmother's ability to "see things," enlists in the tribe's efforts to become federally recognized. He is of a generation where the more Indian you are, the better, despite the truth that they are all mixed. His mother, Iris Gonzales, complements his tale with her disconcerting attempts to be accepted by a white, middle-class society and her struggle to come to terms with her Indian identity.

The most powerful narrative in the novel belongs to grandmother Elba Gonzales. She emerges in the middle of the book, recounting coming of age in the desperate years of the "Dirty '30s." She has known the numbing solace of alcohol and watched five of her infants die. But she presses on and becomes a sort of spiritual anchor for her daughter and grandson, preserving the Indian cultural and spiritual ways and, ultimately, hope.

"Watermelon Nights" is the latest in a string of successes for Sarris. He shared credits for producing the 1996 HBO TV movie based on his work "Grand Avenue" with Robert Redford. And he has just completed two plays, including one for the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles about Laguna Beach Indians. In the works are a screenplay as well as a musical script commissioned by "Rent" producer Jeffrey Sellers and an HBO series, co-produced by "Northern Exposure's" Rob Thompson.

It's a stunning resume for a former bad boy and later actor/model, who was once immersed in the Andy Warhol and Studio 54 scenes. ", he admits But, Sarris says, the supposed glamour and glitter of Hollywood hasn't seduced him this time around. His job is to tell stories.

"The thing I'm interested in is truth and healing," Sarris said. "But I'm not a medicine man. I just have a pen."