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A review by spenkevich
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
5.0
‘You hide in the herd. You wait. And you never forget’
Having been a fan of Stephen Graham Jones for awhile now, it has haunted me year after year that I had not yet read The Only Good Indians. The book stalked me, perched on my shelf, eyeing me to be its victim come spooky season. This year it finally caught me. Like the characters hunted by Elk Woman, once it had its hold on me I could think of nothing else, practically do nothing else but be dragged along its narrative of growing dread and violence. And I loved every moment of it. Jones has a nearly supernatural skill to craft so much horror, grief, humor and action onto the page, none of them competing for emotional space but instead amalgamating into something far greater and gripping. His stories are populated by endearing characters who open their hearts full of flaws and tattered hopes and Jones never shies away from sending them to violent ends. Here they are pitted in a race against an encroaching fate that manifests generations of grief and guilt into an apocalyptic atmosphere of almost certain doom. On the surface of The Only Good Indians is a truly terrifying monster tale that functions as a window into themes of indigenous identity and feelings of futility to escape guilt, poverty and reservation life as Jones demonstrates horror as a legitimate literary medium that will leave you chills.
‘Thanksgiving was going to be an Indian holiday this year, with the four of them bringing in a haul like this.’
Each turn of the page piles onto a growing sense of dread in this sharp and sinister novel. It opens on a scene of violent death--‘INDIAN MAN KILLED IN DISPUTE OUTSIDE BAR’ the headline reads, ‘thats one way to put it’ the character thinks, knowing it was a mysterious elk that really got him killed. But this does more than introduce the unique twist on a man vs. nature theme and immediately draws our attention to the violence and aggression faced by indigenous people in the US (indigenous people are 2.5 times as likely to experience violence compared to any other race, and 84.3% of women
Their actions recalls the genocides that took the land from their people and corralled them into lives on reservations. Guilt chases us all through our lives, but this time it might be really out to get them in the form of Elk Woman.
“We’re from where we’re from,” she says back. “Scars are part of the deal, aren’t they?”
If this sounds a bit like [b:I Know What You Did Last Summer|47763|I Know What You Did Last Summer|Lois Duncan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348843470l/47763._SY75_.jpg|967250] set on a reservation, its probably because not only does The Only Good Indians pay homage to indigenous heritage but to the heritage of the genre as well. Jones discussed in an interview, that the book was crafted to be ‘wanted to write a slasher, but in the way a slasher hasn’t been done before’ and he makes creative use of many tropes here. Notably, Jones plays with a common, and unfortunately fairly racially insensitive horror trope of the “indian curse”—you know, the whole “don’t build a house on an Indian graveyard” thing—and re-appropriates it in the form of a curse now hunting Blackfeet (similarly, Jones title re-appropriates the infamous genocidal quote by US Army general-in-chief Phillip Henry Sheridan). But we have other elements as well, and I really appreciated the nod to “Final Girls” of horror fame by having Denorah be nicknamed “Finals Girl” by her father due to her basketball notoriety taking her team to the finals. What is quite fresh here, however, is the way horror tropes are used as a way to explore cultural identity, and one that the characters are always questioning themselves: what does it mean to be Blackfeet in the modern world? Consider the moment when they decide to hold a sweat to honor tradition:
There is an undercurrent in the novel that ‘three-braid days are over and done with,’ that nobody is going around earnestly believing themselves the reincarnation of ‘Blood Clot Boy’, that the stereotypes used about their people have little to nothing to do with life on the reservation and there is a prevailing sadness about this:
There is a chilling desperation here, too, because nobody seems to be able to escape it. And in The Only Good Indians even when you think you’ve broken free, your curse comes to call.
‘Really, Lewis imagines, he deserves some big Indian award for having made it to thirty-six without pulling into the drive-through for a burger and fries, easing away from diabetes and high blood pressure and leukemia. And he gets the rest of the trophies for having avoided all the car crashes and jail time and alcoholism on his cultural dance card. Or maybe the reward for lucking through all that—meth too, he guesses—is having been married ten years now to Peta, who doesn’t have to put up with motorcycle parts in the sink…’
But back to the horror. Because this one really chilled me, I mean, I cut a midnight walk with my dog short because I couldn’t stop thinking about Elk Woman appearing in flashes between the passing boxcars of a train--this book gets INSIDE you. It helps that Jones is such a visual writer and all the jump scares and abrupt violence—of which there is plenty and I’ll never think of motorcycle engines the same again—registers as very cinematic. And for as clear as it is Jones truly cares about his characters, he also will kill them at any moment so it keeps you on your toes. Even the slower scenes in the middle make you wonder when everything will explode into gore. It’s all written with such care and I enjoyed discovering that the elk in the novel were inspired by the [a:James Dickey|31457|James Dickey|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1422858070p2/31457.jpg] poem A Birth, which you can read in full here but I find the opening stanza particularly alive in this novel:
‘Inventing a story with grass,
I find a young horse deep inside it.
I cannot nail wires around him:
My fence posts fail to be solid…’
An aspect I found to be very successful is the way the horror is very psychological, with the quick reminders of their crime making them wonder if they are losing their grip on reality. ‘If animals came back to haunt the people who shot them, then the old-time Blackfeet would have had ghost buffalo so thick in camp they couldn't even walk around,’ Lewis thinks, but then he questions every sound and begins to question if friends are just an elk in disguise. Which is what really makes this story frightening: we can fear Elk Woman and her finally catching us, but what is more alarming is knowing she can push us to commit the atrocities for her. It speaks to the ways the characters think how many of their friends or families ruin their own lives, backed into crimes, drugs or alcoholism, and we see how quickly an argument can turn into violence. Because ‘when the whole world hurts, you bite it, don’t you?’
When asked what he hoped to communicate with this book, Stephen Graham Jones responded ‘Horror, man. If someone hesitates before turning the living room light off, if they’re counting the steps down a dark hall, than I’ve done what I’m here to do.’ I am about to post this and then shut off all the lights at work, and I’m already dreading the moment when I have to walk through the totally blackened bookstore with thoughts of Elk Woman in my head. Will her face rise above a shelf? I hope not. But thats how I know this book really worked for me, because I cannot stop thinking about it. It should be said too that there is a great humor mixed in, even in the frightening moments (c’mon, Lewis deciding someone has to go because they don’t catch the laugh line from a novel they both supposedly read is great). But there are also some truly visceral and wildly disquieting moments that I will likely never shake. The Only Good Indians should become a spooky season classic.
4.5/5
‘For them, ten years ago, that's another lifetime.
For you, it's yesterday.’
Having been a fan of Stephen Graham Jones for awhile now, it has haunted me year after year that I had not yet read The Only Good Indians. The book stalked me, perched on my shelf, eyeing me to be its victim come spooky season. This year it finally caught me. Like the characters hunted by Elk Woman, once it had its hold on me I could think of nothing else, practically do nothing else but be dragged along its narrative of growing dread and violence. And I loved every moment of it. Jones has a nearly supernatural skill to craft so much horror, grief, humor and action onto the page, none of them competing for emotional space but instead amalgamating into something far greater and gripping. His stories are populated by endearing characters who open their hearts full of flaws and tattered hopes and Jones never shies away from sending them to violent ends. Here they are pitted in a race against an encroaching fate that manifests generations of grief and guilt into an apocalyptic atmosphere of almost certain doom. On the surface of The Only Good Indians is a truly terrifying monster tale that functions as a window into themes of indigenous identity and feelings of futility to escape guilt, poverty and reservation life as Jones demonstrates horror as a legitimate literary medium that will leave you chills.
‘Thanksgiving was going to be an Indian holiday this year, with the four of them bringing in a haul like this.’
Each turn of the page piles onto a growing sense of dread in this sharp and sinister novel. It opens on a scene of violent death--‘INDIAN MAN KILLED IN DISPUTE OUTSIDE BAR’ the headline reads, ‘thats one way to put it’ the character thinks, knowing it was a mysterious elk that really got him killed. But this does more than introduce the unique twist on a man vs. nature theme and immediately draws our attention to the violence and aggression faced by indigenous people in the US (indigenous people are 2.5 times as likely to experience violence compared to any other race, and 84.3% of women
‘ it was like–he hates himself the most for this–it 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, terraforming this new land for their occupation. Fertilize it with blood.’
Their actions recalls the genocides that took the land from their people and corralled them into lives on reservations. Guilt chases us all through our lives, but this time it might be really out to get them in the form of Elk Woman.
“We’re from where we’re from,” she says back. “Scars are part of the deal, aren’t they?”
If this sounds a bit like [b:I Know What You Did Last Summer|47763|I Know What You Did Last Summer|Lois Duncan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348843470l/47763._SY75_.jpg|967250] set on a reservation, its probably because not only does The Only Good Indians pay homage to indigenous heritage but to the heritage of the genre as well. Jones discussed in an interview, that the book was crafted to be ‘wanted to write a slasher, but in the way a slasher hasn’t been done before’ and he makes creative use of many tropes here. Notably, Jones plays with a common, and unfortunately fairly racially insensitive horror trope of the “indian curse”—you know, the whole “don’t build a house on an Indian graveyard” thing—and re-appropriates it in the form of a curse now hunting Blackfeet (similarly, Jones title re-appropriates the infamous genocidal quote by US Army general-in-chief Phillip Henry Sheridan). But we have other elements as well, and I really appreciated the nod to “Final Girls” of horror fame by having Denorah be nicknamed “Finals Girl” by her father due to her basketball notoriety taking her team to the finals. What is quite fresh here, however, is the way horror tropes are used as a way to explore cultural identity, and one that the characters are always questioning themselves: what does it mean to be Blackfeet in the modern world? Consider the moment when they decide to hold a sweat to honor tradition:
“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.
There is an undercurrent in the novel that ‘three-braid days are over and done with,’ that nobody is going around earnestly believing themselves the reincarnation of ‘Blood Clot Boy’, that the stereotypes used about their people have little to nothing to do with life on the reservation and there is a prevailing sadness about this:
‘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, they may as well have just stood up into that big Gatling gun of history, yeah?’
There is a chilling desperation here, too, because nobody seems to be able to escape it. And in The Only Good Indians even when you think you’ve broken free, your curse comes to call.
‘Really, Lewis imagines, he deserves some big Indian award for having made it to thirty-six without pulling into the drive-through for a burger and fries, easing away from diabetes and high blood pressure and leukemia. And he gets the rest of the trophies for having avoided all the car crashes and jail time and alcoholism on his cultural dance card. Or maybe the reward for lucking through all that—meth too, he guesses—is having been married ten years now to Peta, who doesn’t have to put up with motorcycle parts in the sink…’
But back to the horror. Because this one really chilled me, I mean, I cut a midnight walk with my dog short because I couldn’t stop thinking about Elk Woman appearing in flashes between the passing boxcars of a train--this book gets INSIDE you. It helps that Jones is such a visual writer and all the jump scares and abrupt violence—of which there is plenty and I’ll never think of motorcycle engines the same again—registers as very cinematic. And for as clear as it is Jones truly cares about his characters, he also will kill them at any moment so it keeps you on your toes. Even the slower scenes in the middle make you wonder when everything will explode into gore. It’s all written with such care and I enjoyed discovering that the elk in the novel were inspired by the [a:James Dickey|31457|James Dickey|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1422858070p2/31457.jpg] poem A Birth, which you can read in full here but I find the opening stanza particularly alive in this novel:
‘Inventing a story with grass,
I find a young horse deep inside it.
I cannot nail wires around him:
My fence posts fail to be solid…’
An aspect I found to be very successful is the way the horror is very psychological, with the quick reminders of their crime making them wonder if they are losing their grip on reality. ‘If animals came back to haunt the people who shot them, then the old-time Blackfeet would have had ghost buffalo so thick in camp they couldn't even walk around,’ Lewis thinks, but then he questions every sound and begins to question if friends are just an elk in disguise. Which is what really makes this story frightening: we can fear Elk Woman and her finally catching us, but what is more alarming is knowing she can push us to commit the atrocities for her. It speaks to the ways the characters think how many of their friends or families ruin their own lives, backed into crimes, drugs or alcoholism, and we see how quickly an argument can turn into violence. Because ‘when the whole world hurts, you bite it, don’t you?’
When asked what he hoped to communicate with this book, Stephen Graham Jones responded ‘Horror, man. If someone hesitates before turning the living room light off, if they’re counting the steps down a dark hall, than I’ve done what I’m here to do.’ I am about to post this and then shut off all the lights at work, and I’m already dreading the moment when I have to walk through the totally blackened bookstore with thoughts of Elk Woman in my head. Will her face rise above a shelf? I hope not. But thats how I know this book really worked for me, because I cannot stop thinking about it. It should be said too that there is a great humor mixed in, even in the frightening moments (c’mon, Lewis deciding someone has to go because they don’t catch the laugh line from a novel they both supposedly read is great). But there are also some truly visceral and wildly disquieting moments that I will likely never shake. The Only Good Indians should become a spooky season classic.
4.5/5
‘For them, ten years ago, that's another lifetime.
For you, it's yesterday.’