She looks behind her--nothing calling her back--and steps forward gingerly, to crack this last Big Indian Mystery.
--The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones
This is the essential modern Native American mystery--how to claim an identity that lies dead in the past, irretrievable in the present, without foundation in the future? Where to go from the limbo of the reservation, a neutral territory in the midst of wars but dimly recollected, protected by old treaties that seem now to guarantee only stagnation, apathy, an endless scourge of listlessness? What to cling to other than fables and ghosts?
I have long been attracted to the American Indian novel, from House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday to Love Medicine by Louis Erdrich to The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie, and now this one, The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones. I find that these novelists share a common tone, and though this is voiced in a wide variety of styles, the impression imparted is the same. It is both a grin and a grimace, both gloom and hope, both laughter and tears. And it is inimitable. It is an inside joke, a rolling of the eyes, a dismissive scoff directed both inward and outward. In a certain sense, the only good Indians are dead Indians because these are the only authentic Indians.
This novel, taking its title from the infamous Philip Sheridan quote, is brutal from the beginning to very nearly the end. It chronicles the history and the inescapable pursuance of a curse, although it does not ultimately disallow the possibility of redemption, albeit only through violence, the exacting of a penalty. "This," as the author says, "is not the end of the trail. It never was the end of the trail. It's the beginning."
The Only Good Indians is a grim, thought provoking novel that stands well in the ranks of its contemporaries.
--The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones
This is the essential modern Native American mystery--how to claim an identity that lies dead in the past, irretrievable in the present, without foundation in the future? Where to go from the limbo of the reservation, a neutral territory in the midst of wars but dimly recollected, protected by old treaties that seem now to guarantee only stagnation, apathy, an endless scourge of listlessness? What to cling to other than fables and ghosts?
I have long been attracted to the American Indian novel, from House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday to Love Medicine by Louis Erdrich to The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie, and now this one, The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones. I find that these novelists share a common tone, and though this is voiced in a wide variety of styles, the impression imparted is the same. It is both a grin and a grimace, both gloom and hope, both laughter and tears. And it is inimitable. It is an inside joke, a rolling of the eyes, a dismissive scoff directed both inward and outward. In a certain sense, the only good Indians are dead Indians because these are the only authentic Indians.
This novel, taking its title from the infamous Philip Sheridan quote, is brutal from the beginning to very nearly the end. It chronicles the history and the inescapable pursuance of a curse, although it does not ultimately disallow the possibility of redemption, albeit only through violence, the exacting of a penalty. "This," as the author says, "is not the end of the trail. It never was the end of the trail. It's the beginning."
The Only Good Indians is a grim, thought provoking novel that stands well in the ranks of its contemporaries.
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