The Navajo tribe, the Dine, are the largest tribe in the United States and live across the American Southwest. But over a century ago, they were nearly wiped out by the Long Walk, a forced removal of most of the Dine people to a military-controlled reservation in New Mexico. The summer of 2018 marked the 150th anniversary of the Navajos' return to their homelands. One Navajo family and their community decided to honor that return. Edison Eskeets and his family organized a ceremonial run from Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in order to deliver a message and to honor the survivors of the Long Walk. Both exhilarating and punishing, Send a Runner tells the story of a Navajo family using the power of running to honor their ancestors and the power of history to explain why the Long Walk happened. From these forces, they might also seek the vision of how the Dine--their people--will have a future.
Edison Eskeets is a former All-American runner, coach, artist, and teacher who has been running in the Southwest for over fifty years. He served as the head of school and the dean of students for the nationally recognized Native American Preparatory School. He is the first Navajo trader to manage the Hubbell Trading Post, the oldest continuously operating trading post in Navajo country. He lives between Ganado, Arizona, and northern New Mexico. Jim Kristofic grew up on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona. He has written for the Navajo Times, Arizona Highways, Native Peoples Magazine, and High Country News. He is the author of The Hero Twins: A Navajo-English Story of the Monster Slayers, Navajos Wear Nikes: A Reservation Life, Medicine Women: The Story of the First Native American Nursing School, and Reservation Restless (all published by UNM Press). He lives in Taos, New Mexico.
"Beautifully penned."--Toni Reavis "Send a Runner: A Navajo Honors the Long Walk is a positive message about a tragic chapter in history."--Paul Willeto "Tribal College Journal" "[Edison Eskeets's] collaboration with skilled writer Jim Kristofic uniquely interweaves the Navajo people's painful history with personal commitment and, ultimately, optimism for the future. . . . Kristofic's engaging writing style achieves an effective back-and-forth between occasional vignettes from different points in Eskeets's past and frequent episodes--often humorous, occasionally poignant--from out on the road."--John Kissane "PodiumRunner" "In describing an aging Navajo's long-distance run to mark how a painful episode in that tribe's past ends in triumph, Eskeets and Kristofic revisit a noteworthy chapter in Native American history. As he tells it, an old story lives again as a deeply human, contemporary event of lasting magnitude."--Paul G. Zolbrod, author of Dine bahane The Navajo Creation Story "In this eloquent narrative . . . the past and the present interweave fluidly."-- "Taos News" "No dry retelling of history. . . . equal parts uplifting, disturbing, funny, and compelling."-- "Farmington Daily Times" "The authors pass the baton back and forth, their relay race in book form crossing the finish line with aplomb. Its language observes the color of the modern world alongside the nuance of complex history. This is not a parachute job, but people who live and feel right here."--Julie Ann Grimm "Santa Fe Reporter" "The story of the Dine is intricately braided into the story of Eskeets's run."--Mackenzie Chase "Arizona Daily Sun" "This is one of the most exciting--and beautifully written--books that I've ever read. I have lived on the Navajo Reservation and trained with their best runners. Eskeets and Kristofic capture the beauty of that land and the magical power of running through it in a way that I've never encountered before. It's an extraordinary book of great hope and promise. I could not get enough of it."--Sebastian Junger, New York Times bestselling author of WAR, The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea, and Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging "With starkly beautiful prose, the authors bring all of this to urgent life, vividly depicting the numerous outbreaks of brutal violence and clearly demonstrating the remarkable resiliency of the Dine. . . . A unique, important addition to the literature on the Navajo."-- "Kirkus Reviews, starred review"
