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A review by shanehawk
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
5.0
[a:Stephen Graham Jones|96300|Stephen Graham Jones|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1582648775p2/96300.jpg], with this novel, has skyrocketed up to being my favorite horror writer. [b:The Only Good Indians|52180399|The Only Good Indians|Stephen Graham Jones|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565292632l/52180399._SY75_.jpg|71431671] is multi-layered and if you blink you'll miss something. I read many books every year and it will be difficult to top this one for 2020. It will also prove to be difficult to move onto another read so shortly after finishing this one. Holy cow--or elk.
There are sequences in this novel that will make you put down the book, look incredulously out into space, and return to re-read them. Wait, what did I just read?! A great writer can elicit this response from their readers after they have created relatable and lovable characters (despite their flaws) and something bad happens to them. I connected to all of his characters and believed in them. Belief is a strong, central theme here and resonates with readers, in my opinion. How much does one believe from generational knowledge, the things they were told by their elders growing up?
SGJ also weaved a lot of Indian history and cultural identity issues into the characters' introspections. Many of these passages spoke to me as I grew up with a father of the Cheyenne & Arapaho tribe and have always been aware of tribal history as well as cultural issues within our tribe and many others. I connected with this novel more than any others. It spoke to me and it will speak to my future children. Since I can remember, my dad has called me Shaney and the moment I realized one of the main characters shared this name my posture straightened and my ears perked up. Could this novel be written just for me?...
I loved everything about it from the clever title (taken from an infamous, maybe-fake quote, but, nevertheless a sentiment followed by early Americans) to the flipping of the aged, openly racist "Indian curse" trope. I devoured this novel in two ways within a span of 24 hours—the audiobook, brilliantly narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett, and the Kindle edition. Below, I'd like to share some of my favorite passages for their prose, humor, or emotion.
"It’s the guilt of having some pristine Native swimmers—they probably look like microscopic salmon, even though the Blackfeet are a horse tribe—it’s the guilt of having those swimmers cocked and loaded but never pushing them downstream, meaning the few of his ancestors who made it through raids and plagues, massacres and genocide, diabetes and all the wobbly-tired cars the rest of America was done with, those Indians may as well have just stood up into that big Gatling gun of history, yeah?" (Page 39)
"[I]t was probably what it was like a century and more ago, when soldiers gathered up on ridges above Blackfeet encampments to turn the cranks on their big guns, terraform this new land for their occupation. Fertilize it with blood. Harvest the potatoes that would grow there, turn them into baskets of fries, and sell those crunchy cubes of grease back at powwows." (Page 75)
"What this means, Gabe knows, it’s that she’s going to reach an age where she’ll want to take the world in her teeth and shake until she tears a hunk of something off for herself." (Page 164)
"'I’ve never done one at night,' Gabe says then, leaning back in Jo’s chair, the chair not quite bending. Yet.
'A sweat?' Cassidy says.
'There’s nothing, like, against doing it at night, is there?' Gabe asks.
'Let me check the big Indian rule book,' Cassidy says. 'Oh yeah. You can’t do anything, according to it. You’ve got to do everything just like it’s been done for two hundred years.'
'Two thousand.'
They laugh together." (Pages 179-80)
There are sequences in this novel that will make you put down the book, look incredulously out into space, and return to re-read them. Wait, what did I just read?! A great writer can elicit this response from their readers after they have created relatable and lovable characters (despite their flaws) and something bad happens to them. I connected to all of his characters and believed in them. Belief is a strong, central theme here and resonates with readers, in my opinion. How much does one believe from generational knowledge, the things they were told by their elders growing up?
SGJ also weaved a lot of Indian history and cultural identity issues into the characters' introspections. Many of these passages spoke to me as I grew up with a father of the Cheyenne & Arapaho tribe and have always been aware of tribal history as well as cultural issues within our tribe and many others. I connected with this novel more than any others. It spoke to me and it will speak to my future children. Since I can remember, my dad has called me Shaney and the moment I realized one of the main characters shared this name my posture straightened and my ears perked up. Could this novel be written just for me?...
I loved everything about it from the clever title (taken from an infamous, maybe-fake quote, but, nevertheless a sentiment followed by early Americans) to the flipping of the aged, openly racist "Indian curse" trope. I devoured this novel in two ways within a span of 24 hours—the audiobook, brilliantly narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett, and the Kindle edition. Below, I'd like to share some of my favorite passages for their prose, humor, or emotion.
"It’s the guilt of having some pristine Native swimmers—they probably look like microscopic salmon, even though the Blackfeet are a horse tribe—it’s the guilt of having those swimmers cocked and loaded but never pushing them downstream, meaning the few of his ancestors who made it through raids and plagues, massacres and genocide, diabetes and all the wobbly-tired cars the rest of America was done with, those Indians may as well have just stood up into that big Gatling gun of history, yeah?" (Page 39)
"[I]t was probably what it was like a century and more ago, when soldiers gathered up on ridges above Blackfeet encampments to turn the cranks on their big guns, terraform this new land for their occupation. Fertilize it with blood. Harvest the potatoes that would grow there, turn them into baskets of fries, and sell those crunchy cubes of grease back at powwows." (Page 75)
"What this means, Gabe knows, it’s that she’s going to reach an age where she’ll want to take the world in her teeth and shake until she tears a hunk of something off for herself." (Page 164)
"'I’ve never done one at night,' Gabe says then, leaning back in Jo’s chair, the chair not quite bending. Yet.
'A sweat?' Cassidy says.
'There’s nothing, like, against doing it at night, is there?' Gabe asks.
'Let me check the big Indian rule book,' Cassidy says. 'Oh yeah. You can’t do anything, according to it. You’ve got to do everything just like it’s been done for two hundred years.'
'Two thousand.'
They laugh together." (Pages 179-80)