Minnesota Book Awards 2022 -- Finalist in Novel & Short Story

"Fluid in time and place, Carnival Lights flows between one past and another, offering a heartbreaking portrait of multigenerational trauma in the lives of one Ojibwe family. This tapestry of stories is beautifully woven and gut-wrenching in its effect. Read it, and it may change you forever." -- William Kent Krueger, New York Times Bestselling author

Blending fiction and fact, Carnival Lights ranges from reverie to nightmare and back again in a lyrical yet unflinching story of an Ojibwe family's struggle to hold onto their land, their culture, and each other. Carnival Lights is a timely book for a country in need of deep healing.

In August 1969, two teenage Ojibwe cousins, Sher and Kris, leave their northern Minnesota reservation for the lights of Minneapolis. The girls arrive in the city with only $12, their grandfather's WWII pack, two stainless steel cups, some face makeup, gum, and a lighter. But it's the ancestral connections they are also carrying - to the land and trees, to their family and culture, to love and loss - that shapes their journey most. As they search for work, they cross paths with a gay Jewish boy, homeless white and Indian women, and men on the prowl for runaways. Making their way to the Minnesota State Fair, the Indian girls try to escape a fate set in motion centuries earlier.

Set in a summer of hippie Vietnam War protests and the moon landing, Carnival Lights also spans settler arrival in the 1800s, the creation of the reservation system, and decades of cultural suppression, connecting everything from lumber barons' mansions to Nazi V-2 rockets to smuggler's tunnels in creating a narrative history of Minnesota.

"Fluid in time and place, Carnival Lights flows between one past and another, offering a heartbreaking portrait of multigenerational trauma in the lives of one Ojibwe family, this tapestry of stories is beautifully woven and gut-wrenching in its effect. Read it, and it may change you forever." -- William Kent Krueger, New York Times Best Selling Author

"Chris Stark's newest novel explores the evolution of violence experienced by Native women. Simultaneously graphic and gentle, Carnival Lights takes the reader on a daunting journey through generations of trauma, crafting characters that are both vulnerable and resilient." -- Sarah Deer, (Mvskoke), Distinguished Professor, University of Kansas, MacArthur Genius Award Recipient

"Carnival Lights is a heartbreaking wonder of gorgeous prose and urgent story. It propels the reader at a breathless pace as history crashes down on the readers as much as it does on the book's vivid characters. The author's brilliant heart restores their dignity and via the realm of imagination, brings them home." -- Mona Susan Power, author of The Grass Dancer, a PEN/Hemingway Winner

"It's not every day that one is given an inimitable gift of truth. Carnival Lights is that gift. The history books that we've all read throughout time were purposely devoid of the realities of decades of Native genocide, attempts to eradicate our culture, and the horrendous effects of the boarding school era-trauma that continues to permeate the American Indian communities today. Carnival Lights is an opportune story of how two young girls navigate these lived experiences and provides a veracity that will reach deep into your heart, creating a newfound reflection of the actualities of this historical trauma. Chris Stark, a skilled narrative artist, once again engenders storytelling that ingeniously weaves multi-generational authenticities for not only the Native communities, but also as reflected for so many others. It's time for all of us to embrace this gift of truth." -- Deb Foster, Anishinaabe, MS-MFT Executive Director for the Ain Dah Yung Center, a meeting place for American Indian homeless youth and families

"There are so many moods and story currents running through this wonder of a novel that I can attribute to individual women whose lives experiences run parallel to Stark's many characters. The two female adolescences in this novel take us to high and low heights, just like a carnival ride. It's overwhelming, irrational and dangerous, and there is no one to help, just as it has been for Indigenous people from the moment colonizers stepped foot on this continent of Turtle Island. Carnival Lights is powerful storytelling. Indigenous ancestors are persistently returning, so as not to be forgotten in death and memory, and Stark puts the reader right in the center of their pain and struggles." -- Mary K. Kunesh, Minnesota Senator, Standing Rock Lakota descendant, chair of Minnesota Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women taskforce

"Carnival Lights is a powerful story of resilience, an emotional rollercoaster ride and an expression of the raw truth of multigenerational trauma. Sher, a lesbian and protector, or what we call 'two-spirit, ' is particularly connected with the old ways." -- Lenny Hayes, Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, and Two-Spirit activist

"Chris Stark weaves Native spirituality throughout Carnival Lights from the 1960s, before the Religious Freedom Act of 1978. We will lay under a fern, waiting for a drop of water to fall from the tip of the leaf with Em, feel the freedom of fleeing abuse with Kris and get to know the protector Sher who watches over Kris like a wolf. Carnival Lights reminds us that we are not alone, and we are watched over by ones we would have never known or seen if it were not for this desperate moment we are in right now. Chris Stark reminds us how important our teachings are, how our memories can comfort us in our darkest hour when we need it the most. Chris draws us into the inspiration and comfort provided to the characters at times guiding their next move." -- Babette Sandman, Ojibwe elder, White Earth Nation enrolled citizen living in Duluth

"Chris Stark has done a beautiful job of incorporating this story of cousins; Sher and Kristin, within a historical and cultural narrative. The trauma that they experience is a familiar tale for many of us. I did not just read this story.... I felt this story and I journeyed with Sher and Kristin in all directions, and through many emotions. The connection to the story of Native women today is clear and brilliantly written. Chi miigwetch, Chris!" -- Nicole Matthews, ED of Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition, White Earth Anishinaabe

Learn more at www.ChristineStark.com

From Modern History Press