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By Rose Hooper
Twenty years in the writing, MariJo Moore's first novel, The Diamond
Door Knob, follows Cloud, a young Indian girl, who must revisit
her childhood - and beyond- to discover the roots of her suffering.
Only when she confronts the scars she carries with her from an
incestuous relationship with her father and physical abuse by
her first husband can she forgive, let go of past burdens and
move forward into a new life.
Moore
Moore, who is of Cherokee, Irish and Dutch ancestry, will visit
City Lights Bookstore at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 12, to read selections
from her book, which debuted in October.
Through her pen (or keyboard), Moore gives Cloud the strength
to make her journey of self discovery. On the way, Cloud discovers
she has the same gift of "second sight" that her Cherokee
Granddaddy Smoker had.
A black fortune teller named Maggie was one of the first to point
it out to her:
"Youse gots the same gifts I's gots, youse knows that. I's
talking about the gift of power. Youse is one powerful woman!
And I's don't mean power that youse can use to control others.
Uh Uh, that there is the Devil's workins. I's mean the power that
allows youse to reach right into that other realm and snatch back
the truth.
And youse know that sooner or later youse gonna have to start
using it to help people. That's all there is to it," Maggie
said.
Maggie also gives Cloud (and the reader) good advice in dealing
with deep-rooted anger.
"You gotta let go that anger, honey. All it does is bounce
offen people right back into youse. People is just mirrors. What
youse direct towards them bounces off and comes right on back
to youse. That's why it's better to love than to hate. Can't even
love yoreself iffen youse go around hatin' somebody else,"
Maggie tells Cloud.
Tanya, the powerful physic she is destined to meet, tells Cloud,
"Love doesn't stop just because it takes other forms, such
as hate and fear."
Dreams, which she calls "the doorway of people's future and
the closet of their past," help Cloud transcend the seedy
world and characters in which she lives.
The path of Cloud's journey that helps her realize her strength
and gifts is the path she takes deep inside herself. Moore, with
her Cherokee ancestry, portrays this as a Native American spiritual
quest.
This Western North Carolina writer has taught writing workshops
in many of the school systems, including the Qualla Boundary.
She was named North Carolina's Distinguished Woman of the Year
in the Arts in 1998 and chosen by Native Peoples magazine as one
of the top five American Indian writers of the new century (June/July
2000 issue).
Her published works include Crow Quotes, Desert Quotes, Spirit
Voices of Bones, Tree Quotes, Red Woman With Backward Eyes and
Other Stories; Feeding the Ancient Fires: A Collection of Writings
by North Carolina American Indians; The Ice Man, The First Fire
and The Cherokee Little People.
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