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The Only Good Indians

Pages
320
Published
2020
Language
English

Synopsis

Ten years ago, four young men from the Blackfeet reservation went hunting in a place they should have left alone, and did something on that snowy day that broke with everything they were taught. They walked away and grew up—into jobs, families, and the ordinary business of trying to live well. But the past did not walk away with them.

Now, one by one, the four are being stalked by a vengeful presence that has waited a decade to collect. As it closes in, each man is forced to confront the cost of that long-ago hunt, and the ways a single act of carelessness can echo through a life, a community, and a people's history.

A modern horror landmark by Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians fuses relentless dread with sharp, tender writing about friendship, tradition, guilt, and Native identity. It is a revenge story with claws—and a heart.

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About the author

S
Stephen Graham Jones

Stephen Graham Jones (born January 22, 1972, in Midland, Texas) is an American author of horror, crime and speculative fiction, and an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation. He holds a B.A. from Texas Tech University, an M.A. from the University of North Texas, and a Ph.D. from Florida State University, and is the Ineva Baldwin Professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he has taught since 2008. His novels include The Only Good Indians, My Heart Is a Chainsaw, and The Bu...

Characters

Lewis ClarkeProtagonist

A Blackfeet postal worker in Great Falls who left the reservation and married outside it after the hunt; guilt over the pregnant elk he was forced to kill resurfaces as visions that unravel his marriage and his grip on reality.

Cassidy Sees ElkProtagonist

Also called Cass; the one of the four friends who stays on the reservation and tries to build a stable life — a steady job, savings, a relationship with Jo — while the past catches up with him.

Gabriel Cross GunsProtagonist

Known as Gabe; a Blackfeet man with a troubled reputation on the reservation who pins his own redemption on his daughter Denorah's basketball talent.

All characters in The Only Good Indians

Frequently asked questions

  • Did The Only Good Indians win any awards?

    Yes. The novel won the 2020 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel and the 2020 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel.

  • Is The Only Good Indians part of a series?

    It stands alone. Stephen Graham Jones has since written a follow-up, Off the Reservation, which picks up with a surviving character some years after the events of this book.

  • Who narrates The Only Good Indians audiobook?

    The audiobook is read by Shaun Taylor-Corbett.

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