What Lies Buried Beneath Our Feet in Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle’s “Even As We Breathe”

A few weeks ago, I reread Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle’s debut novel Even As I Breathe for class. When I initially read the novel back in 2023, I found it engaging and important, but I did not really get into it until about halfway through the novel when the various threads throughout the story started to come together. This time, though, the book grabbed mu attention and led me to think about a lot of things that I have been contemplating over the past few years, specifically the ways we construct the past and the ways that the past exists even when we don’t want too recognize it or even think about it.

Before Cowney Sequoyah even tells us his story, he exhorts us to think about our sense of place and memory. He begins by stating, “About the place — when I take you there or when you find it on your own, just know that what the old folks say is true.” Cowney, over the course of the novel, will lead us to the “place,” his home in Cherokee, North Carolina. He will show us the land, and when he shows us the land, the place, we will know see what the old folks say.

Cowney continues by pointing out that wherever we walk, we walk on a foundation of the past. This past exists whether or not it appears in writing or if it gets passed down orally from generation to generation. No…