As we prepare our tables for Thanksgiving this November and reflect on the things in life we are grateful for, it is also an appropriate time to acknowledge, honor, and learn how Native Americans contribute to the social and cultural wealth and history of the US during Native American Heritage Month. Whether you are a fan of literary fiction, horror, or science fiction, here are three diverse Native American authors to read this month:
Louise Erdrich in her bookstore, Birchbark Books
Louise Erdrich is the author of 28 books that range from novels, to poetry, to children’s literature. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a tribe of the Ojibwe people.
Love Medicine, her first novel, won the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award. The beautiful, engaging histories of its characters continue throughout several of her next novels, in the “Love Medicine” series. The characters tell the stories of how the lives and histories of Ojibwe people and Scandinavian-Americans are irrevocably intertwined through history and religion in the rural Midwest.
The Round House won the National Book Award in 2012 and centers the difficult reality of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and the disproportionate gender-based violence against Indigenous women.
The Night Watchman won the Pulitzer Prize in 2021. The novel is based on her grandfather’s activism surrounding Indigenous rights and sovereignty.
Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones is a member of the Blackfeet Tribe and the author of over 30 novels, novellas, short story collections, anthology contributions, and graphic novels. He is one of the most prolific, entertaining, and interesting horror fiction writers working today.
The Only Good Indians won the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Novel Awards in 2020. This haunting and sometimes hilarious novel follows a group of friends who unwittingly disturbed the order of the universe in an ill-fated elk hunting trip in their youth.
Mongrels was the first of SJG’s books that I read, and I’ve been hooked ever since. A genius coming-of-age Indigenous werewolf novel…need I say more?
Don’t Fear the Reaper is book 2 of the “Indian Lake Trilogy.” This one picks up four years after Jade Daniels’ “final girl” saga, My Heart is a Chainsaw (November’s Strange and Unusual Book Club pick!). She’s at it again to save the town of Proofrock from a Friday the 13th slasher!
Rebecca Roanhorse is of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and African American descent. She is the author of two series, one standalone novel, and has contributed to Star Wars and Indigenous graphic novels. Her work centers Navajo characters and stories.
Trail of Lightning is Roanhorse’s first novel, and begins The Sixth World series. The New York Times review of Trail of Lightning includes this plea, “Someone please cancel Supernatural already and give us at least five seasons of this badass Indigenous monster-hunter and her silver-tongued sidekick.” I couldn’t agree more!
Inspired by pre-Columbian Indigenous cultures and prophecies, the “Between Earth and Sky” series begins with Black Sun. “Black sun” refers to a solar eclipse that occurs on the winter solstice and unbalances the universe, as foretold by a Sun Priest.
Tread of Angels is Roanhorse’s most recent standalone mythological Western of historical science fiction fantasy. Plus demons!
