I’ve been teasing the Horror Book Blog for weeks, and now that we’re into October, it’s finally here! I hope you’re ready. We’re starting this series off with one of the most gore-iffic books I’ve read in quite some time: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.
SGJ, as I will now call him for the rest of this blog (SORRY) is a fairly prolific horror author. The Only Good Indians came out in July, and the author already has another NEWER book, Night of the Mannequins, which hit shelves at the beginning of September. I’ve read some of this other books, and while he’s usually square in the horror genre, he’s not afraid to take risks and try new things. And when you’re writing so much, why not? Goals, truly.
Before reading The Only Good Indians, I read SGJ’s The Last Final Girl back in June of this year. While The Last Final Girl (purposefully) read like a horror movie script, in the vein of the Scream films, The Only Good Indians has a much different feel. It takes its time. It’s dark and moody. It’s literary. But is it any good?
Here’s the general premise: It’s the end of the Hunting Season. Four young Blackfeet men, Lewis, Ricky, Gabe, and Cass, make a choice that they know is wrong, and yet they do it anyway. Because of youthful adrenaline and the thrill of the hunt, I guess. But that decision haunts them for the rest of their lives.
“I know what you did last hunting season.” - The elk you killed
10 years later… all is not well. There is an evil spirit that is hunting down Lewis, Ricky, Gabe, and Cass. One by one. Usually, she appears in the shape of a woman with an elk head, but beware… she takes other forms.
Are you creeped out yet?
I really don’t want to give anything away, because you really should read this one if you love good horror fiction and can deal with about 1,000 different animal deaths. But I will stay the first section of the book starts with a bang. Sort of like the beginning of your traditional horror movie, there’s a really shocking beginning to get the ball rolling. It serves as a promise to the viewer (or reader in this case) that more scary shit is coming. But you just have to be patient.
And yes, you will have to be patient with this one, because it’s a slow build after that initial bloodshed. But I think the payoff makes it worth it. Not only because this book has some seriously horrifying moments where my brain could not believe what my eyeballs were reading. But also because this book has some thought-provoking things to say about how America treats indigenous people and, yes, how humans treat animals.
Because let’s be clear here. The “bad guy” is an elk seeking revenge for what happened to her ten years prior. But none of the four men she’s hunting are good people, really. And I was reading, I was reading and anticipating these men getting what was coming to them. To be fair, I am a vegetarian animal-loving person who hearts more pictures of animals on Instagram than I do of people. I think hunting is horrible and I could never imagine killing animals for fun. So yeah, I might be biased here. But I was rooting for the elk demon.
TEAM ELK!
As I said, this book also explores what it means to be Blackfeet in America, specifically how non-indigenous Americans see indigenous people and how indigenous people see themselves. Half of the gang of hunters are still living on the reservation. The other half have left and become part of the outside world. Ricky has actually married a white woman, although he does have some sort of flirtation going on with a Blackfoot woman. Ultimately, what it means to be Indian is different to each of these characters. And yet the outside world still sees them as a monolithic group. I think SGJ expresses this well in this novel.
Overall, I feel like this is a really strong start to a blog series that took me a minute to get going. When I finished reading this book, I was excited to share my feelings about it with others.
The next SGJ novel I’m going to read is Mapping the Interior, another one of his books that seems to be focused on indigenous identity. Next for the horror blog? I’m going to keep it a surprise, but I have a stack to choose from, and I’m excited to share!