In the last few years I’ve been working on filling in the numerous heavy knowledge gaps left over from where my US history education in school fell short, with a particular focus on trying to fix the almost total lack of information I receive involving all things native American. To say the least, I’ve learned quite a lot, but also feel like I still have a very, very considerable way to go, to put it gently. As a result, I appreciated my opportunity to real John Sayles' latest work. Was it able to fully cover the actual scale of the intense attempted cultural genocide that was kicked off with the establishment of the Carlisle Indian School? No, of course not. But "To Save the Man" still does excellent work bringing to life the really helped bring to life the beginnings of the forced assimilation period indigenous-US government relations and the multiple harsh and complex disruptions that it not only immediately caused, but whose after-effects continue to be felt into the present day.

This historical fiction stirred emotional repossession as the black and white of history books came alive with real feelings and concerns generated by the words of the story.

While reading "To Save the Man," I kept thinking, John Sayles intended this to be a film, and important film about the Wounded Knee Massacre, the boarding school where Native Americans were sent to become white, and for people to learn more about the ghost dance. But somehow, this is a novel (at least as of today) and not a film. I'm a huge fan of his films, and kept imagining this on big screen, something I normally don't do while reading a novel because if I read the novel first, I tend to enjoy the movie less. I'm not so sure that would be the case with this "To Save the Man" because the prose wasn't as powerful as the message the novel reveals. Our main characters are not only believable and fleshed out, but there seems to be gaps, and that may be because (avoiding spoilers) we don't really know these people when they lived on the reservation, their lives at home with their families. We know them from the boarding school, which we already have a generic idea about their racist, violent approach toward "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" quest. Towards the end of the novel, after Sitting Bull has been murdered, and one student returns home, he realizes he has lost his native tongue, and his family wishes he'd leave, but then the massacre happens, so we don't really get to see him with his family. It's an important novel, one that will resonate with many readers.