TO SAVE THE MAN is a story about another shameful episode in American history. A story about the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, founded in Carlisle, PA in 1879. It was a military style boarding school, based in the historic Carlisle Barracks (now the U.S. Army War College), established and paid for by the government, to educate the children of indigenous people.

The title of the book comes from the school's founding superintendent, Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt (1840-1924). With previous experience handling indigenous POWs, Pratt came to believe so completely in the need for total assimilation by indigenous people, that he adhered to the motto "kill the Indian, save the man".

This is a deeply sad book. At the beginning, it's 1890. The buffalo are largely gone from the American plains and millions of indigenous peoples have already been killed off by war and disease. Indigenous parents often force their children to attend schools like Carlisle because of the promise that learning the ways of the white man will help them have a better future. But what the Carlisle School required in exchange was for the children to entirely give up their native customs, language, clothing, hair and name in exchange for only a small chance at citizenship. Sure they learned about arts, music, even football - but what a cost!

Administrators were continually trying to present a glossy facade to the public when, in reality, conditions were harsh. In addition to lessons, children were assigned to various types of agricultural and service work, both on and off campus, where their wages were sent directly to school coffers and the children themselves received only a small stipend for personal items.

Introduced early in the book and hovering over the entire story is a prediction from an indigenous Messiah, who says the native peoples will ultimately triumph over the whites, through the repeated performance of a Ghost Dance. So, the reader knows from the start something big is likely to happen.

So why only three stars? On the plus side, the author appears to have been diligent in his research. I learned a lot about what it was like to be at the Carlisle school. The military rigidity that greeted students at induction, the punishments meted out for those who tried to run away, and the pervasive colonial attitude of superiority held by teachers and other supervising adults.

“Our mission at the Carlisle School is to baptize the Indian youth in the waters of civilization—and to hold him under until he is thoroughly soaked!”

On the minus side, I had issues with the writing style that kept me from fully engaging. TO SAVE THE MAN is not a straightforward narrative. It has an episodic quality. There are long passages of narration, so the balance between narration and dialog felt off to me. There is an omniscient narrator, who introduces many characters, but we don't get to hear much from them directly so we learn little about their interior lives. Instead, their stories are put together in what felt to me like a piecemeal way, with some awkwardly abrupt transitions. I felt almost as though I was looking at a series of snapshots in a photo album and only at the end did I get a sense of story.

I do recommend the book, especially because I think most others will NOT be annoyed with the aspects that bothered me. And the content is extremely worthwhile.

An excellent book! I enjoyed the history, the story, and the writing style. I like how the story jumps from place to place, keeping it active and making the reader have to think and pay attention. I also like how it shows multiple sides of the Indian story, from different Indians and different whites. It really brought history to life.

•To Save the Man by John Sayles
•Genre: Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction
•Thoughts:
Centering around the time of the Wounded Knee Massacre and the killing of Sitting Bull, author John Sayles weaves a story of a group of children, some stolen and some given freely, to attend the Carlisle Indian School.

The boys and girls are stripped of their Indian ways and forced to assimilate into Western culture.

The real-life Carlisle Indian Industrial School, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, operated from 1879 to 1918. Present day, it is now part of the United States Army War College.

While researched well, it was lacking in emotional depth and character development. The characters' surfaces barely scratched. The historical atrocities committed against America’s Indigenous are appalling and I had expected the book to bring out a whole range of emotions.

This book would be perfect for someone wanting to learn more beyond public school history classes.

Out this coming January 21st, 2025


Thank you @melvillehouse and @NetGalley for sending an Advance Reader’s Copy for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This is the first book I've read by author John Sayles. Though fiction, it's a well researched and important book, touching on parts of history that I had heard about but never really delved into. Centering on the massacre at Wounded Knee, and the Carlisle Indian School, Sayles brought these things to life in such a way that I found myself doing research of my own on those subjects, as well as the ceremonial 'ghost dance' movement, and the killing of Sitting Bull.
I found that, for me, some of the characters lacked depth, making it difficult for me to really relate to them, or feel a sense of connection with them. That being said, I thought the book to be very well written, and having taught me something about this part of our country's and Native American history, it will definitely resonate with me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Melville House for allowing me to be an early reader of this book.

Honestly, I had a tough time with this one — and not for the reasons I would've expected.

I was initially invested in the characters as they were introduced, but it was slightly overwhelming trying to keep track of who was who. The formatting itself was a bit tough to get into, as the lack of traditional chapters made it felt like there were no good stopping points. Still, I hoped it would all come together as I continued.

200 pages in, and I feel like...not much has actually happened. I know there's necessary exposition, but the pacing isn't hitting a stride. Granted, this just might not be the book for me at this moment. I'll be sure to edit my review if/when I come back to it.

(Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing me with a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review!)

In the last few years I’ve been working on filling in the numerous heavy knowledge gaps left over from where my US history education in school fell short, with a particular focus on trying to fix the almost total lack of information I receive involving all things native American. To say the least, I’ve learned quite a lot, but also feel like I still have a very, very considerable way to go, to put it gently. As a result, I appreciated my opportunity to real John Sayles' latest work. Was it able to fully cover the actual scale of the intense attempted cultural genocide that was kicked off with the establishment of the Carlisle Indian School? No, of course not. But "To Save the Man" still does excellent work bringing to life the really helped bring to life the beginnings of the forced assimilation period indigenous-US government relations and the multiple harsh and complex disruptions that it not only immediately caused, but whose after-effects continue to be felt into the present day.

This historical fiction stirred emotional repossession as the black and white of history books came alive with real feelings and concerns generated by the words of the story.

While reading "To Save the Man," I kept thinking, John Sayles intended this to be a film, and important film about the Wounded Knee Massacre, the boarding school where Native Americans were sent to become white, and for people to learn more about the ghost dance. But somehow, this is a novel (at least as of today) and not a film. I'm a huge fan of his films, and kept imagining this on big screen, something I normally don't do while reading a novel because if I read the novel first, I tend to enjoy the movie less. I'm not so sure that would be the case with this "To Save the Man" because the prose wasn't as powerful as the message the novel reveals. Our main characters are not only believable and fleshed out, but there seems to be gaps, and that may be because (avoiding spoilers) we don't really know these people when they lived on the reservation, their lives at home with their families. We know them from the boarding school, which we already have a generic idea about their racist, violent approach toward "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" quest. Towards the end of the novel, after Sitting Bull has been murdered, and one student returns home, he realizes he has lost his native tongue, and his family wishes he'd leave, but then the massacre happens, so we don't really get to see him with his family. It's an important novel, one that will resonate with many readers.