Off the Reservation

Set five years after the events of The Only Good Indians, Nate Yellow Tail joins a ragtag group to repatriate the bones of a Blackfeet boy from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Set five years after the massacres on the Blackfeet reservation, Nate Yellow Tail is one of the two survivors of the deadly revenge murders of author Stephen Graham Jones’s breakout bestseller, The Only Good Indians. Listless at twenty and looking for meaning, Nate finds himself in the hospital after a terrible accident that should’ve killed him, that nearly killed his best friend who is hanging onto life in a room a few doors down. His life is out of balance, so when he is given the chance to set a wrong and set it upright, Nate steps up, again. This time it’s into a camper van that is almost as run down as his broken body, filled with four older Blackfeet who are sharing their vision quest with Nate to find the bones of the lone Blackfeet boy who died at the infamous Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and repatriate them home. The problem is, when they get the bones, something comes back with them.

Jones has crafted another American Indian novel for our times, shining the light on the dark corners of this country’s history while also showing the desperate choices people make when they’re put up against the wall. With his beloved mix of humor and dread, Jones’s companion to The Only Good Indians is a story that will haunt you.