Book Review: Rites: Stories by Savannah Johnston

By Alex Carrigan

​We tend to cling to traditions and essential moments in our lives in order to give some grounding to everything we do. We want to believe that life is more than death and taxes, and so we look for the moments that will affirm our existence and force us to confront them with the culmination of our experiences. But for those whose lives lack almost anything to begin with, searching for and engaging in these rites can be more daunting and more harrowing than expected.

In her new short story collection, Rites: Stories, author Savannah Johnston presents twelve rites of passage centered around people in rural Oklahoma. The stories appear to be set in the same area, with many characters identifying as part of the Choctaw nation, and appear to be set anywhere from the mid-late 90's to the present day. In each story, Johnston presents characters who are about to undergo some kind of rite and how they and those around them respond to it.

Many of the stories follow the responses to the dichotomy of life and death. The opening story, the titular "Rites," is told from the perspective of a young girl whose father has died and who observes how her family and relatives react to his passing. Other stories, like the two "Shell" stories, follow characters who are new parents or are responding to the challenges that come from parenthood. While these stories do carry the specific settings of rural Oklahoma and indigenous characters, many of their tales feel universal in a way. The first "Shell" story features a new father making a turtle shell outfit for his newborn daughter from a dead turtle he found not only to fill the time due to his unemployment, but to also to prove to himself that he can provide somehow for his child even if it's an odd method like this.

However, many of the best pieces in Rites are those that play into the setting. Johnston is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and centering several stories around other members does allow her to play with these rites with other issues in rural indigenous communities. A few stories do have characters dealing with poverty, drug issues, incarceration, and more, and some of them are forced to reconcile with these matters as they pertain to their indigenous identity. These include stories like "Want," which follows impoverished twin sisters as their childhood is marked by acts of shoplifting and theft. Others like "What's Yours and What's Mine" look at how the community responds to young women undergoing maturity and how some men take advantage of this newfound sexuality.

What really sells Rites as a collection is how interplayed all of the stories are. It's subtle at first, but there are names that pop up throughout the collection to show how characters pass in and out of each other's lives. A character described as deceased in one story is the protagonist of another, and although he doesn't die in his story, his own story gives an idea of his character and how he may have met his fate. The main character of "What's Yours and What's Mine" is also an important figure in "Shell II," being an influential figure in the life of "Shell II's" protagonist. This choice suggests that another rite of life is the mere act of being a part of other people's lives, no matter how big or small the action. Every person, especially in small, insular communities like rural and indigenous communities, is part of the ecosystem and their actions and lives do pour out in ways others may not notice.

Rites is an examination of the minutiae of life and how we give meaning to the smallest of actions. It's a look at how communities feed into and respond to the changes of life and how asserting one's existence can be revelatory or unnoticed. It may be hard for some readers to identify and relate to the characters at first, but it takes a spiritual examination of the stories to truly illuminate the relatability.