The Jailing of Cecelia Capture

by Janet Campbell Hale

Book Overview

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.

The Jailing of Cecelia...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826310036
• ISBN13: 9780826310033
• Release Date: July 1987
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Identity in American Society

The Jailing of Cecilia Capture is a well-written novel that addresses the themes of home, purpose, family, struggles, and foremost identity. Hale writes the story without distracting the reader with anything that isn't needed. Of primary interest to native american readers, such as myself, this work looks at a character, who like so many of us, is trying to balance the past with the present, being native with trying to make a living in American society. The way Cecilia Capture stumbles through her identity and difficulties, and somehow manages a precarious balance that works is a valuable lesson in "seeking life". I highly recommend this book to native readers, and to non-Indians who wish to get a glimpse of some of the challenges we natives are faced with. It is also a book with a great independent woman character, who is portrayed in a realistic and appreciable way.