This 2020 novel by Native American author Stephen Graham Jones mixes literary explorations of indigenous peoples' identity with slasher-film tropes, making it his first novel with mainstream success. Did Jones change something about his writing to get there, or did the literary world catch up to him? We discuss how history, symbols, and context fit into his project while asking, "Why did the literary establishment like this so much?"

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

Sources:

https://blackfeetnation.com/
https://blog.nativehope.org/native-american-animals-the-elk-a-protector-and-relative
https://academic.oup.com/isle/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/isle/isad056/7255951?redirectedFrom=fulltext
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/stephen-graham-jones-the-only-good-indians-interview/
https://ew.com/books/2019/08/08/only-good-indians-preview/
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/29/896840079/in-his-new-book-stephen-graham-jones-explores-the-idea-of-good-indians
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/16/891433693/grief-and-guilt-spawn-horrors-in-the-only-good-indians
https://www.jstor.org/stable/541345
https://journals.kent.ac.uk/index.php/transmotion/article/view/266/900
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-07-15/the-only-good-indians-by-stephen-graham-jones-review
https://blog.nativehope.org/native-american-animals-the-elk-a-protector-and-relative
https://filmobsessive.com/film/film-news/film-interviews/interview-stephen-graham-jones-a-discussion-on-lost-highway-and-mapping-the-interior/
ERIC GARY ANDERSON, et al. "Demon Theory for Beginners, or The Intertextual Badlands of Stephen Graham Jones." Postindian Aesthetics, University of Arizona Press, 2022, pp. 165-, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2c3k193.24.
Washuta, Elissa and Warburton, Theresa. Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers, Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2019.
Schaak, Hogan D. "Bleeding All over the Shelves and Tracking It Out into the World: Theorizing Horror in the Indigenous North American Novels The Only Good Indians and Empire of Wild." Studies in the Fantastic, vol. 15, 2023, p. 94-126.