Arts & Literature
![Sasha TaqʷšƏblu Lapointe - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B099CF1NXN.jpg)
Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk
Winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award
An Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home
Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe has always longed for a sense of home. When she was a child, her family moved around frequently, often staying in barely habitable church attics and trailers, dangerous places for young Sasha.
With little more to guide her than a passion for the thriving punk scene of the Pacific Northwest and a desire to live up to the responsibility of being the namesake of her beloved great-grandmother-a linguist who helped preserve her Indigenous language of Lushootseed-Sasha throws herself headlong into the world, determined to build a better future for herself and her people.
Set against a backdrop of the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land and imbued with the universal spirit of punk, Red Paint is ultimately a story of the ways we learn to find our true selves while fighting for our right to claim a place of our own.
Examining what it means to be vulnerable in love and in art, Sasha offers up an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas amplified by the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples. Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience, and, above all, the ability to heal.
An Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home
Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe has always longed for a sense of home. When she was a child, her family moved around frequently, often staying in barely habitable church attics and trailers, dangerous places for young Sasha.
With little more to guide her than a passion for the thriving punk scene of the Pacific Northwest and a desire to live up to the responsibility of being the namesake of her beloved great-grandmother-a linguist who helped preserve her Indigenous language of Lushootseed-Sasha throws herself headlong into the world, determined to build a better future for herself and her people.
Set against a backdrop of the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land and imbued with the universal spirit of punk, Red Paint is ultimately a story of the ways we learn to find our true selves while fighting for our right to claim a place of our own.
Examining what it means to be vulnerable in love and in art, Sasha offers up an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas amplified by the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples. Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience, and, above all, the ability to heal.
Editorial Reviews
Winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award
A NPR Best Book of the Year
A BookPage Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
A NYLON Must-Read Book of the Month
Named a Most Anticipated Book by NYLON, Bustle, Electric Lit, Ms., BookPage, and The Millions
"When Sasha LaPointe isn't singing in punk bands, she's writing about her life as an Indigenous person of Upper Skagit and Nooksack lineage, which has culminated beautifully in her debut memoir . . . A gripping read that sheds fresh light on what it means to be both punk and Indigenous in America." -Jason Heller, A NPR Best Book of the Year
"Absorbing . . . a worthy tribute to Coast Salish women." -TIME
"Sasha's compelling personal story, the story of her maternal ancestors and the lands they have inhabited are inextricably linked in this memoir. This is essential reading for those of us who now live on what was once, completely, the territory of Coast Salish people." -The Seattle Times
"LaPointe recounts the interconnected stories of her life and the lives of some of her ancestors as Coast Salish women living in different time periods on their ancestral lands. These simultaneous threads capture resilience, trauma, love, healing, and connection . . . Her work is definitely something to be watched." -Sarah Neilson, Shondaland
"The Pacific-Northwest native's story is one of survival . . . LaPointe reckons with a fraught past by weaving together memoir and poetry to create something that feels raw and unfiltered." -Shannon Carlin, Bust
"[A] poetically punk debut memoir about ancestry, loss, colonialism, rebuilding, power, hope and healing." -Karla Strand, Ms.
"A beautiful story about lineage, love, and what it means to reclaim one's life." -Laura Schmitt, Electric Literature
"Set against a backdrop of of the breathtaking beauty of C...
A NPR Best Book of the Year
A BookPage Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
A NYLON Must-Read Book of the Month
Named a Most Anticipated Book by NYLON, Bustle, Electric Lit, Ms., BookPage, and The Millions
"When Sasha LaPointe isn't singing in punk bands, she's writing about her life as an Indigenous person of Upper Skagit and Nooksack lineage, which has culminated beautifully in her debut memoir . . . A gripping read that sheds fresh light on what it means to be both punk and Indigenous in America." -Jason Heller, A NPR Best Book of the Year
"Absorbing . . . a worthy tribute to Coast Salish women." -TIME
"Sasha's compelling personal story, the story of her maternal ancestors and the lands they have inhabited are inextricably linked in this memoir. This is essential reading for those of us who now live on what was once, completely, the territory of Coast Salish people." -The Seattle Times
"LaPointe recounts the interconnected stories of her life and the lives of some of her ancestors as Coast Salish women living in different time periods on their ancestral lands. These simultaneous threads capture resilience, trauma, love, healing, and connection . . . Her work is definitely something to be watched." -Sarah Neilson, Shondaland
"The Pacific-Northwest native's story is one of survival . . . LaPointe reckons with a fraught past by weaving together memoir and poetry to create something that feels raw and unfiltered." -Shannon Carlin, Bust
"[A] poetically punk debut memoir about ancestry, loss, colonialism, rebuilding, power, hope and healing." -Karla Strand, Ms.
"A beautiful story about lineage, love, and what it means to reclaim one's life." -Laura Schmitt, Electric Literature
"Set against a backdrop of of the breathtaking beauty of C...
Readers Top Reviews
Samantha Stanfiel
I read it in under 24 hours. I don’t have the words to express how this book made me feel but it is powerful and leaves you raw in the best way. It’s a journey of healing and growth and discovery and I felt it in my core. Cannot recommend enough!
Craig EidsmoeSama
I never read a book twice. That is until “Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk.” As a an older straight white man, I especially benefited by reading the story of an indigenous woman. Sasha LaPointe allowed me in her world and I’m better for it. It is an excellent and important read — insightful, deeply personal and written with poetic economy. I can’t recommend it enough!
RedFeather76Craig
Every white person needs to read this book. I am a white woman with a small amount of Native blood and I had no idea about the real experience of the modern Native American. I thought I knew my "his"tory. I didn't. This book is so real, raw, beautiful, and brutally honest about what it is to feel less than, other, invisible, colonized, woman, human, and robbed of culture, land, identity, and innocence. This work is painful, essential and, I hope, the beginning of a reclaiming.
maryRedFeather76C
this book arrived very fast and in great condition.
Cliff TaylormaryR
We’re moving into a new era of Native literature: all the folks who grew up with next to no representation but loved culture and their Native people anyway, are now cranking out one beautiful book after another and it’s all only going to keep growing and growing. Sasha LaPointe’s story is so recognizable, powerful, intimate, and deeply felt. She grew up in Washington and Seattle, came from a strong line of Coast Salish women, suffered different kinds of abuse that’re too present in the lives of many of us, gripped hard onto the radical power of punk rock, carried a Twin Peaks tattoo on her soul, and found healing through her art and the potent threads of her people’s ways. That’s kind of what this book, her memoir, is about. I read it in a little over a day, seeing myself on page after page, feeling all the rockiness and realness of her journey, and ultimately loving how her story is one of hope for all of us Native people who’re trying to find our way out of the shadows of the past while still holding onto every precious thing our ancestors sent forward to us for our spirits and well-being. My girlfriend and I read the last 3 chapters aloud, as the book unexpectedly climaxed with her coming to Astoria (where we live) and Ilwaco (about 15 miles away) to see the home where one of her Coast Salish ancestors lived with her sea captain husband after her own people were wiped out by smallpox. It was, like the rest of the book itself, a storytelling spell that filled the room and transported us right into the heart of everything that still dwells upon this land, that still speaks in a language some part of us will never/can’t ever forget. If you’ve never read a Native memoir and are wondering what that young Native child in your kid’s class is living with or what that quiet Native at the coffee shop is going through, then RED PAINT would be a good one for you to pick up and experience, to be with and listen to. I saw myself in Sasha LaPointe’s book and I know many, many other Natives will see themselves in there too. Chances are, you’re in there as well.
