The Jailing of Cecilia Capture - Softcover

"Hale draws on her own American Indian heritage to provide the rich detail, authentic dialogue and unfurbished prose that add special drama to a convincing and memorable story." " a . . . poignant, memorable novel . . . a fine piece of writing . . ." At the end of this novel one is left with a feeling of grim determination that suggests in its very simplicity, a new valuation of life, of going on. Hale draws on her own American Indian heritage to provide the rich detail, authentic dialogue and unfurbished prose that add special drama to a convincing and memorable story. "[a]. . . poignant, memorable novel . . . a fine piece of writing . . ."

Cecelia Capture Welles, an Indian law student and mother of two, is jailed on her thirtieth birthday for drunk driving. Held on an old welfare fraud charge, she reflects back on her life on the reservation in Idaho, her days as an unwed mother in San Francisco, her marriage to a white liberal, and her decision to return to college. This mixed inheritance of ambition and despair brings her to the brink of suicide.