From New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience. Fans of Sylvia Moreno Garcia and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
319 pages
Published July 14, 2020
Published July 14, 2020
The librarian warned me, when I borrowed this book, that it got dark. Dark and disturbing. She wasn't wrong. There was a lot about The Only Good Indians that evoked a visceral reaction, disgust and fear and that lingering feeling of dread when you don't know what the next twist will be, but you know it won't be anything good.
Generational trauma never is. And that's largely what The Only Good Indians is about, or at least that's the impression I got. The past catching up to people, not being able to escape the consequences of prior actions, and always waiting for people to see the worst of you, striving to overcome the ripples of something that maybe you did, or maybe you're just connected to someone who did, but those ripples hit you no matter what.
It began when a group of young men decided to hunt at a time and place they shouldn't, breaking taboos and hoping to make the best of it. But that hunt, those actions, awaken something that vows revenge for wrongs done, and then it stalks, biding its time, waiting to take away everything from the men who took things away from it to begin with. That's why I mentioned getting caught up in ripples. It's not just the men who did the deed who get punished, but those around them. How better to make someone suffer than by taking away the ones they love? To make them doubt their sanity and hurt others? How do you fight back against something like that? How do you begin to make amends; is that even possible?
I can't speak to the Indigenous spirituality shown on The Only Good Indians; that's not my area of expertise, and I know too little to claim otherwise. But I know enough of people to say with certainty that The Only Good Indians is, despite strong supernatural elements, a profound and evocative human story. It's about people trying not necessarily to escape the past, because the past shapes who we are now, but about trying to move on with their lives and make the best of things, to become better people than they were when they did something horrible. It's weirdly inspiring, if you overlook the way the past absolutely catches up with them. It's people just trying to be people, as best they can, all while a darkness chases them down.
The Only Good Indians gets gory sometimes, and distressing if you're sensitive to animal violence, but it doesn't glorify the gore, doesn't go over the top with it. What's there is disturbing enough, given its context, and there were more than a couple of scenes where I had to put the book down and just sit with what I'd read for a while, working through it and putting the pieces together while also trying to not just give up due to some more distressing aspects. The book is too good to give up on, I can say that for certain. It's not always easy to put those pieces together, sometimes a struggle to read the book's darker sections, but the story deserved my time, deserved my emotions, deserved me being challenged by what I'd just read.
It's a difficult book to talk about. The writing is beautifully evocative, the story terrifyingly dark and layered, full of social commentary, but the story is something that has to be experienced, rather than read about. Anything I writing in this review will not do the author's work justice. It's a tragic and brilliant horror novel, one that was never going to be an easy read, and I respect it for that. I'm interested in reading more of the author's work, and now I'm a bit more prepared to enter into that kind of darkness once more. The Only Good Indians is a book that leaves a deep impact, and deserves to be read more by horror fans and fans of Indigenous literature alike.
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