"Strong Medicine" Speaks: A Native American Elder Has Her Say

Amy Hill Hearth's first book, Having Our Say, told the true story of two century-old African-American sisters and went on to become an enduring bestseller and the subject of a three-time Tony Award-nominated play. In "Strong Medicine" Speaks, Hearth turns her talent for storytelling to a Native American matriarch presenting a powerful account of Indian life.

Born and raised in a nearly secret part of New Jersey that remains Native ancestral land, Marion "Strong Medicine" Gould is an eighty-five-year-old Elder in her Lenni-Lenape tribe and community. Taking turns with the author as the two women alternate voices throughout this moving book, Strong Medicine tells of her ancestry, tracing it back to the first Native peoples to encounter the Europeans in 1524, through the strife and bloodshed of America's early years, up to the twentieth century and her own lifetime, decades colored by oppression and terror yet still lifted up by the strength of an enduring collective spirit.

This genuine and delightful telling gives voice to a powerful female Elder whose dry wit and charming humor will provide wisdom and inspiration to readers from every background.