Hot New Titles From Native American Writers - 11/2021

The Removed by Brandon Hobson Genre: Adult Fiction In the fifteen years since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting, the Echota family has been suspended in private grief. The mother, Maria, increasingly struggles to manage the onset of Alzheimer's in her husband, Ernest. Their adult daughter, Sonja, leads a life of solitude, punctuated only by spells of dizzying romantic obsession. And their son, Edgar, fled home long ago, turning to drugs to mute his feelings of alienation. With the family's annual bonfire approaching—an occasion marking both the Cherokee National Holiday and Ray-Ray's death, and a rare moment in which they openly talk about his memory—Maria attempts to call the family together from their physical and emotional distances once more. But as the bonfire draws near, each of them feels a strange blurring of the boundary between normal life and the spirit world. Maria and Ernest take in a foster child who seems to almost miraculously keep Ernest's mental fog at bay. Sonja becomes dangerously fixated on a man named Vin, despite—or perhaps because of—his ties to tragedy in her lifetime and lifetimes before. And in the wake of a suicide attempt, Edgar finds himself in the mysterious Darkening Land: a place between the living and the dead, where old atrocities echo. Drawing deeply on Cherokee folklore, The Removed seamlessly blends the real and spiritual to excavate the deep reverberations of trauma—a meditation on family, grief, home, and the power of stories on both a personal and ancestral level. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: adult fiction
• Digital copy from Libby/Overdrive: ebook, audiobook

About the author: Brandon Hobson has a PhD in English/Creative Writing from Oklahoma State University. He is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. His novel Where the Dead Sit Talking was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award. Other books by this author:

• Where the Dead Sit Talking (2018)
• Best American Short Stories (2021)
• Pushcart Prize XL: Best of the Small Presses (2016)

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich Genre: literary fiction Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading "with murderous attention", must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning. The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written. Check it out:

• Hard copy from RPL: adult fiction

About the author: Louise Erdrich has written numerous books across many genres including children's books, poetry, literary fiction, as well as science fiction and fantasy. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Her work has won many awards including the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the National Book Award, Pushcart Prize in poetry, the O. Henry Award, the World Fantasy Award, and multiple Scott O'Dell Awards for Historical Fiction. Other books by this author:

• Click here to see all 28 RPL holdings for this author.

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson Genre: historical fiction, bildungsroman Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhota people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn't return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato-where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they've inherited. On a winter's day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband's farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron-women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools. Weaving together the voices of four women, The Seed Keeper is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original relationship to the seeds and, through them, to our ancestors. Check it out:

• Digital copy from Hoopla: ebook, audiobook

About this author: Diane Wilson is a Mdewakanton descendent, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation. Her book Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past won the Minnesota Book Award. Other books by this author:

• Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past
• Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life

When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky by Margaret Verble Genre: historical fiction Louise Erdrich meets Karen Russell in this deliciously strange and daringly original novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble: set in 1926 Nashville, it follows a death-defying young Cherokee horse-diver who, with her companions from the Glendale Park Zoo, must get to the bottom of a mystery that spans centuries. Two Feathers, a young Cherokee horse-diver on loan to Glendale Park Zoo from a Wild West show, is determined to find her own way in the world. Two’s closest friend at Glendale is Hank Crawford, who loves horses almost as much as she does. He is part of a high-achieving, land-owning Black family. Neither Two nor Hank fit easily into the highly segregated society of 1920s Nashville. When disaster strikes during one of Two’s shows, strange things start to happen at the park. Vestiges of the ancient past begin to surface, apparitions appear, and then the hippo falls mysteriously ill. At the same time, Two dodges her unsettling, lurking admirer and bonds with Clive, Glendale’s zookeeper and a World War I veteran, who is haunted—literally—by horrific memories of war. To get to the bottom of it, an eclectic cast of park performers, employees, and even the wealthy stakeholders must come together, making When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky an unforgettable and irresistible tale of exotic animals, lingering spirits, and unexpected friendship. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: adult fiction
• Digital copy from Libby/Overdrive: ebook

About this author: Margaret Verble's first book, Maud's Line, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016. She is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Other books by this author:

• Cherokee America (2019) - ebook, audiobook
• Maud's Line (2016) - ebook, audiobook

Dog Flowers by Danielle Geller Genre: memoir When Danielle Geller’s mother dies of alcohol withdrawal during an attempt to get sober, Geller returns to Florida and finds her mother’s life packed into eight suitcases. Most were filled with clothes, except for the last one, which contained diaries, photos, and letters, a few undeveloped disposable cameras, dried sage, jewelry, and the bandana her mother wore on days she skipped a hair wash. Geller, an archivist and a writer, uses these pieces of her mother’s life to try and understand her mother’s relationship to home, and their shared need to leave it. Geller embarks on a journey where she confronts her family's history and the decisions that she herself had been forced to make while growing up, a journey that will end at her mother's home: the Navajo reservation. Dog Flowers is an arresting, photo-lingual memoir that masterfully weaves together images and text to examine mothers and mothering, sisters and caretaking, and colonized bodies. Exploring loss and inheritance, beauty and balance, Danielle Geller pays homage to our pasts, traditions, and heritage, to the families we are given and the families we choose. Check it out:

• Digital copy from Libby/Overdrive: ebook, audiobook

About the author: Danielle Geller is an author of personal essays and teaches creative writing at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Dog Flowers is her first book. She is a member of the Navajo Nation.

Hunting by Stars (Marrow Thieves #2) by Cherie Dimaline Genre: science fiction/dystopia Years ago, when plagues and natural disasters killed millions of people, much of the world stopped dreaming. Without dreams, people are haunted, sick, mad, unable to rebuild. The government soon finds that the Indigenous people of North America have retained their dreams, an ability rumored to be housed in the very marrow of their bones. Soon, residential schools pop up—or are re-opened—across the land to bring in the dreamers and harvest their dreams. Seventeen-year-old French lost his family to these schools and has spent the years since heading north with his newfound family: a group of other dreamers, who, like him, are trying to build and thrive as a community. But then French wakes up in a pitch-black room, locked in and alone for the first time in years, and he knows immediately where he is—and what it will take to escape. Meanwhile, out in the world, his found family searches for him and dodges new dangers—school Recruiters, a blood cult, even the land itself. When their paths finally collide, French must decide how far he is willing to go—and how many loved ones is he willing to betray—in order to survive. This engrossing, action-packed, deftly-drawn novel expands on the world of Cherie Dimaline's award-winning The Marrow Thieves, and it will haunt readers long after they've turned the final page. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: teen fiction
• Digital copy from Libby/Overdrive: ebook, audiobook

About the author: Cherie Dimaline is a registered member of the Georgian Bay Metis Community. Her book The Marrow Thieves won several literary awards including the Governor General's Award and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers, and was named Book of the Year on numerous international book lists. Other books in this series:

1. The Marrow Thieves (2017)
2. Hunting by Stars (2021)

Other books by this author:

• Empire of the Wild (2020)

My Heart is a Chainsaw (Jade Daniels #1) by Stephen Graham Jones Genre: horror/thriller Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies...especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold. Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges...a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: adult fiction
• Digital copy from Libby/Overdrive: ebook

About the author: Stephen Graham Jones is the award-winning author of numerous books, graphic novels, and novellas, primarily in speculative fiction such as the science fiction and horror genres. He's a winner of both the Bram Stoker Award and the Ray Bradbury Prize. He is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet tribe of Montana. Other books by this author:

• The Only Good Indians (2020)
• Night of the Mannequins (2020)
• Mongrels (2017)

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley Genre: mystery/thriller Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi's hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug. Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims. Now, as the deceptions—and deaths—keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she'll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she's ever known. Check it out:

• Physical copy from RPL: teen fiction
• Digital copy from Libby/Overdrive: ebook, audiobook

About the author: Evangeline Boulley is a storyteller and a former Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education. Fire Keeper's Daughter is her debut novel and was an instant New York Times bestseller. Boulley is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.