Kirkus Review
The story of a 59-year-old Diné (Navajo) man and his 16-day, 330-mile run to honor the Long Walk of the Navajo. Co-written by Eskeets, a runner, coach, and artist, and Kristofic, a Taos-based journalist who grew up on a Navajo reservation in Arizona, the book follows two stories: first, Eskeets' plan to run 330 miles ("a marathon a day") to commemorate the Long Walk, "the forced removal of most of the Diné people to a military-controlled reservation on the Pecos River in south-central New Mexico" between 1864 and 1868; second, a chronicle of the Long Walk in historical context. Eskeets, supported by friends and family throughout the run, and Kristofic, his friend, provide fascinating portraits of both the beauty and physical punishment of the journey, smoothly alternating with a history of the Diné people. The authors recount the grim historical realities that faced the Diné over the centuries: arrival of the Spanish, kidnapping and selling of Diné children into slavery, murder and betrayal, the movement of White Americans across their territory, and the continued attacks on their people. 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 Diné. "Go seek out 'The Flood' by Robert Frost. Read that poem," they write. "In the time required to read that poem, fifteen people are murdered outside Fort Fauntleroy….The shells explode over them and shrapnel pops through their bodies. Twenty people run no more forever." The authors' chronicle of Eskeets' impressive feat highlights the otherworldly beauty of the American Southwest, from Canyon de Chelly (a "spiritual center" once described by mythologist Joseph Campbell as "the most sacred place on earth") in Arizona to Santa Fe, New Mexico. A unique, important addition to the literature on the Navajo. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Marathons are 26.2 miles long. They put the immune system under serious stress, and doctors often tell marathoners they'll need a week to recuperate from muscle fatigue. To set out to run 12 marathons in 15 days at the age of 59 requires brazen defiance and superhuman prowess. In 2018, Eskeets, a longtime educator and at one time an Olympic track-and-field hopeful, embarked on a 330-mile run from Arizona to east New Mexico to commemorate the Long Walk. In 1864, General James Carleton, who once ordered every Navajo dead, forced captured Navajos to trek 350 miles through snowstorms without proper nourishment. Kristofic weaves together episodes from the genocidal frontier history of the American southwest and Eskeets' heroic commemorative run in this transhistorical work that weds accounts of unspeakable violence conspicuously missing from most American history textbooks and a contemporary story of resilience and remembrance. Running connects Eskeets to a legacy of Native American ultrarunner messengers, to a beautiful yet marred natural landscape, and to sacred plants which inspire him to keep going.
