Place of the Pretend People

"Place of the Pretend People" is a vivid, sensitive account of one woman's choice to live and teach in a Yup'ik village---later to make her home in interior Alaska. A fascinating and unusual memoir, Carolyn Kremer's book is both a journey of cultural discovery and a story of spiritual and artistic seeking.The author offers readers an intimate encounter with Yup'ik culture, modern and traditional, as she describes teaching in Tununak, a village tucked along the windswept Bering seacoast of Southwest Alaska.Kremer's experience in Tununak brings raw insight into the life and land of the people she grows to love. Through her friendships with Yup'ik people, she unravels some of the mysteries of lives that have been shaped by a stark northern environment. She also begins to understand some of the mysteries within her own heart.Finally Carolyn the teacher becomes Carolyn the student, the receiver of knowledge.