The double entendre of the title turns out to be an good place to begin an analysis on this book. For instance, the words Crazy Brave could refer to the now antiquated word "brave" for an Native American warrior, or it could be the most obvious use of the word, as a synonym for courage. In the first case, Crazy would be the adjective, so that "crazy brave" refers to the painfully unique shape of this artist's mind, having been driven to the brink by abuse and disappointment. In the second case, it refers to her simultaneous bravery to endure a difficult life.
The mark of mastery in this tale comes in the denouement of Harjo's self-story. She tells us that now she lives alone, without any dependency on anyone else. That shows mastery because she has come from the broken and fragmented psychology of codependence to a place of stoic independence. Yes, she lives with chronic regret and disappointment—about that there can be no mistake. She tripped backward into the same mistakes of her parents so that her judgments against them could be weighed against her own tendency for abuse and brokenness.
But then again there is her art! Perhaps this might be an important takeaway: Regardless of how she feels about her failures, Joy Harjo did do more than her parents because although her parents were abusive in ways she became abusive herself, there is ethical value in Harjo's admission that life is beautiful. By celebrating her painful life through memoir, she reflects an inherent gratitude, if not for the trauma, at least for the beauty of her own point of view. In this way, she has evolved past the hopeless anger of her parents.
