A Novel Resonance of the Spirit

Navigating Identity, Resilience, and Legacy in “The Singing Stick.”

Phyllis Cole-Dai’s novel, “The Singing Stick” is a profound and poetic exploration of identity, resilience, and the haunting legacies that shape us. In offering a narrative that traverses time and place, Cole-Dai deftly interweaves the lives of her characters with the forces that have molded them, reminding us that it is never too late to reclaim our sense of self, to be more “you” than you were before.

The novel begins with a desperate 911 call from Fiona Richter, who frantically reports her husband, Simon, missing. At eighty years old and suffering from dementia, Simon has vanished into the cold Massachusetts night, taking with him his clarinet that is more than just an instrument. It is a “singing stick,” a symbolic conduit connecting past and present, a voice for the unspoken and the forgotten.

As we follow Simon’s journey, “The Singing Stick” peels back the layers of his life, revealing a tapestry of intergenerational trauma, the impact of Indigenous boarding schools, and the complex, enduring power of music. 

The narrative shifts between Simon’s struggle with his deteriorating memory and his childhood, where the seeds of his trauma were first sown. His mother, a survivor of an Indian boarding school, carried the scars of forced assimilation and identity erasure. 

Though she died when Simon was just a boy, her suffering left an indelible mark on him, shaping his sense of self and, unbeknownst to him, the lives of his own children.

In this interview, Phyllis Cole-Dai delves into the complexities of her novel, exploring how seemingly disparate threads of dementia, intergenerational trauma, and music intertwine to form a story that is both deeply personal and universally resonant.

Your novel, “The Singing Stick,” takes readers on a journey that weaves together themes of dementia, intergenerational trauma, and the haunting legacy of Indigenous boarding schools.

How do you see these seemingly disparate threads intertwining to explore the core theme that "It’s never too late to be more ‘you’ than you were before”?

The seemingly disparate threads of dementia, intergenerational trauma, and forced assimilation all pose significant threats to identity—to our sense of self. I view the self as a nexus of identities that are constantly in flux, shaped by the roles we play, the memories we hold, and the connections we form. 

Dementia, intergenerational trauma, and the loss of cultural identity can fracture this sense of self, yet they also offer opportunities for transformation.

Dementia, for example, erodes our capacity to anchor ourselves in the continuity of past and future. It traps us in a disorienting present, but even in that space, we can find agency. 

Simon’s music becomes his lifeline, a way to connect to the essence of who he is beyond the ravages of his illness. His clarinet—the singing stick—is a vessel through which he can still express himself, hold on to fragments of his past, and even communicate with his long-deceased mother. Through music, he reclaims his identity, becomes more himself, even as dementia tries to strip it away.

So in other words, intergenerational trauma can disrupt our ability to define ourselves? 

Yes. It can shape our lives before we are even born, through the experiences and pain of our ancestors. Simon is haunted by his mother’s suffering, by the traumas she endured in the boarding school system that sought to erase her heritage. He carries this burden unknowingly, passing it on to his daughter, Abby. Yet, even this trauma offers a pathway to growth. 

It is through acknowledging and confronting these legacies that we begin to heal, to forge a new sense of self that encompasses but is not defined by the past.

Indigenous boarding schools, like those Simon’s mother endured, were designed to destroy identities. They sought to “kill the Indian, save the man,” a brutal campaign of cultural genocide. Yet, the resilience of Indigenous peoples, their survival and reclamation of their identities, is a testament to the power of self-determination. 

The characters in “The Singing Stick” are, in their own ways, embodying this resilience. They are finding their voices, becoming more than what history tried to make them.

Ultimately, life is an invitation to explore the raw materials of our identity, to improvise on the themes handed down to us, and to transform old pain into new power. It’s never too late to try, to become more of who we are, to make more of our world.

Phyllis Cole-Dai

Music plays a significant role in the novel, especially through the symbolism of the “singing stick.” Can you delve into the significance of music as both a literal and metaphorical through line in the story?

How does it serve as a bridge between the past and present for the characters, particularly Simon?

The singing stick is itself a character in the novel. Its “identity” is fluid, just like that of human beings. Literally, it’s sometimes a native flute; other times, a clarinet. It can be both instruments at the same time. 

More metaphorically, the singing stick is sometimes the character who is making music with one of those instruments. Ultimately, it’s any character who is trying to add his or her part to the “music” of existence—just like the reader is, I hope!

Music is primal. It’s been with us forever, a gift from the gods. Everybody alive can feel a beat in their bones. And that beat makes us move. Music has the power to connect us and to change us.

But there’s no one right way to make music. We take the givens of music—as of our individual lives—and we improvise on them, jamming with other people. Yes, life is jazz!

Music also has the power to transport us. Simon Richter picks up the clarinet after decades of not playing, and suddenly he’s a boy again, taking lessons with his beloved teacher. 

He’s in the barn again, on the farm where he grew up, reliving the last night of his mother’s life. He’s even touching his mother again—because this clarinet, this “singing stick,” was hers before it was his . . . . and it had been someone else’s before it had been hers.

The music Simon plays is a bridge, connecting him to the memories that dementia has tried to steal, to the spirit of his mother, to the essence of himself. It is through music that he navigates the disorienting present, finds solace in the past, and touches something eternal. 

The singing stick is a reminder that even when words fail, when memories fade, there is still a way to communicate, to be, to exist fully.

Your novel has been praised for its rich, believable characters who navigate intense personal and historical challenges. How did you approach developing such multidimensional characters?

Were there any particularly challenging characters to write, and how did you ensure their narratives remained authentic and grounded in reality?

May I say that the characters approached me? They appeared as I was exploring the narrative, as if demanding to be written. Then I was responsible for trying to portray them in a way that did them justice. 

To begin my acquaintance with a character, I listened to what was welling up. I didn’t always know where the character was coming from, exactly, but I trusted the source—for the first draft. 

From that point on, I had to do various forms of research, and I had to seek feedback from advisors and sensitive readers. Yet, in the end, there was no one person who could give an absolute rubber stamp to any character I wrote. Ultimately I had to trust myself.

Some characters were initially inspired by actual people in my life. The character of Simon Richter originated with a dear friend of mine who, in fact, took up clarinet again on the day he was diagnosed with dementia. 

The character of Vera (Chekpawee) Whiteman was informed by my friendship with a Sissituwan Dakota elder whose parents, back in the 1940s, had hidden her from reservation authorities seeking to send her and her twin brother to an Indigenous boarding school.

Of course, it’s always a complex challenge to write any character who is obviously different from me—especially in terms of race or culture. Several such characters inhabit this novel, and I loved getting to know them and the ways they choose to live their identities. Writing each of them stretched me.

Harder yet were the characters who made me uncomfortable or whom I didn’t much like. Take the character of Charley Meadows—a car salesman who is molesting his young stepdaughter. When he popped up, I wanted nothing to do with him. “How,” I wondered, “do I make peace with you enough to get familiar with you, so I can write you?”

Writing a character who is unlikeable is a real test. But I believe in the power of knowledge, imagination, and empathy to forge human connection across differences. Given enough effort and time, I figure that I can flesh out almost any character—if I care enough to try. In a sense, “caring enough to try” is a spiritual practice.

Strangely, I have to say that the character in “The Singing Stick”  who was hardest for me to write was Abby, the grown daughter of Simon and Fiona Richter. She most closely resembles me and my struggle to understand my relationship with my own father. 

For a long time during the writing, there was a thick wall of resistance between Abby and me that I couldn’t seem to penetrate, no matter how my editor kept nudging me. Once I managed to break through, it was profoundly liberating—and not just in terms of the narrative.

Your novel confronts readers with the dark history of Indigenous boarding schools and the practice of racial passing.

How did you balance the responsibility of presenting these painful historical truths while also weaving in elements of hope, redemption, and healing? What message do you hope readers take away from these narratives? 

The novel opens with a 911 call. It reads like a script. No narration. Instantly the reader is immersed in a big problem: “Elderly man suffering from dementia has gone missing in a snowstorm.” Empathy is engaged.

From that point forward, hopefully, the reader wants this problem solved. So the reader, in the hope of solving it, is willing to follow me where I want to take them.

The problems prove to be bigger than one missing man. So the reader ends up grappling with all kinds of troublesome stuff—often stuff they don’t see coming because they’re jumping among different characters and points of view, and they’re leaping back and forth in time.

Good storytelling is bewitching. It draws us in. We’re willing to be led by a story into the dark and trust that we won’t get lost there. We might meet characters who are different from us; we might encounter tragedy. 

But story can help us imagine our way across differences into shared humanity; it can help us imagine different ways of meeting one another, so that terrible events can be avoided or remedied, or at least gotten through, without anyone having to go through it alone.

Good storytelling is, for me, spiritual practice. By harnessing the power of imagination, I invite the reader into a web of community, where everyone has the right—and the need—and the wish—to belong. 

In short, we can meet other people on their own terms. We can notice how our reactions to them mirror our actual states of mind, including our limiting assumptions and our prejudices. If we’re self aware, the characters can teach us how we can better relate to actual human beings.

---

I invite you to become a member supporter of “The Chocolate Taoist”

At $6.00/month or $60.00 year, your funds will help me sustain this labor of love and continue to deliver nuggets of chocolate wisdom to you.

Thank you!

Diamond-Michael Scott

aka The Chocolate Taoist