Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

This is a raw and unflinching look at what it is to be an American Indian living on the Penobscot Indian Nation reservation in Maine in the 21st century. These 12 short stories have a common character in David, a Penobscot boy living on the rez, and it’s his voice, youthful, brash, angry and loving, that links all of the stories. Intergenerational trauma is the in-your-face thread that runs through the stories, binding David to his mother, his sister Paige, his father and his mother’s boyfriend Frick. Shared trauma closes in tightly on David through poverty, death and addiction--and what that looks like on every level of individual, family, and community life is what is both powerful and painful about this collection. The inevitability of poverty and its consequences holds everyone in place, and acts as a reminder of what cannot be outrun. His words are unsparing, giving a cleareyed testimonial, through David, of what it is to be in perpetual service to the inevitability of loss. On the up side, the collection is also teeming with the undeniable physicality and beauty of the natural world, from a rotting snapping turtle whose mysterious stench fills an entire home to a roiling, writhing carpet of caterpillars that takes over a stretch of road leading in and out of the reservation. There are glimpses of what is different about this culture and this brand of poverty that will also stick with you when you finish this.