I received a copy of this book through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I had heard many great things on social media about this book and I was not disappointed when I was lucky enough to read it. It was absolutely fantastic and exactly what I needed to refresh myself and my reading pile. The author weaves a fantastic and intricate story that keeps you turning the pages from the very first words.

This is a dark and queasy novel. It’s about a group of guys who go hunting in the woods. Something happens and then 10 years later they’re faced with the fallout. I can’t say anything else without giving too much away. It starts off seeming like more of a psychological novel but then morphs into straight up horror. It’s a revenge story but it has more layers and nuances. There were some weak spots. A little bit more character development in some places would have been good. Also, certain parts and aspect of the book just didn’t seem to fit. There’s a prolonged showdown between two of the characters at the end that I’m hoping gets eliminated or a least pared down in the final copy. The writing has a visceral and realistic quality that left me felling a little ill at time. Which is a good quality for a horror novel to have.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the publisher for an early copy of The Only Good Indians! This is probably my favorite horror release so far this year! Stephen Graham Jones really knows how to spin a horrifying story and make it even scarier. I loved the pacing of this book, it made it that much more thrilling. This book really made me realize how much I love a good horror story. I gave it a 4.5 out of 5 stars ⭐️ I will be recommending this book to my viewers and friends. This book will make a great movie!

I was so excited to win this book, but unfortunately, it just wasn't the book for me. I know this book is getting a lot of hype and I encourage you to read reviews of those who liked this book. I just found this book to be slow and I just didn't think the plot was easy to follow and I think too much is introduced in the beginning of this book so I was overall confused and a bit bored. As always, I appreciate the opportunity!

If you are someone who enjoys horror novels that build on suspense and intrigue throughout before delivering a by your seat kind of ending, then The Only Good Indians is a summer read that you’re going to have to pick up. In a similar vein to Stephen King’s It, Jones plays on the idea that what you uncover years ago will eventually come to find you. There is no running from your past and what your past has created or in Lewis’s case, manifested by his younger self’s poor decision making to elk hunt in a place where they had no right to do so and, who along with his friends, took more than they would ever need. Their kills manifested something powerful that now, a decade later, is wanting its revenge.
We meet up with Lewis, a Blackfeet, who is now in his 30’s. He has lived off the reservation for sometime and works for the post office. He is happily married to Peta and has a solid life. One night, a light appears above the mantel in his home and so he climbs a tall ladder to see what is causing it. When he looks down, he sees the bloodied body of an elk that he has killed years ago and still holds its hide. Startled, he loses his footing and is sure that he is about to meet certain death on the brick beneath him when his wife intervenes and saves him. His friend Ricky, an accomplice to the illegal hunt years ago, is not so lucky, however. He has already met his end in the parking lot of a bar at the end of an elk’s antlers.


Thus, we are thrown into the world where Lewis and his remaining friends are fighting for their lives along an unseen force that is bent on revenge for their choices they made when they were young. These group of men are relentlessly chased by the monster they manifested when they killed the elks years ago. We shift from third person to first person as the she-elk-monster seeks her revenge on them and then back to third for the grand finale. There is much blood and gore and yes, if you are like me, the killing of the dog and the descriptive nature of the scene will leave you marred for days afterwards, but overall, this horror novel that mixes with Native American lore is a great pick for a late night read when you’re looking to stay up late and have your darkened living room feel like a creepy den of subtle horrors.
What I liked most about this novel is that it was not only a well-written horror piece, but it was also generally well-crafted and invited higher literary elements into the text such as the use of Native American lore, symbolism and several themes that helped to drive the tension of the novel including Lewis’s guilt over marrying a white woman, life outside of the reservation and the plays on sanity versus descent into madness.
“Death is too easy. Better to make every moment of the rest of a person’s life agony.”
About the Author
Stephen Graham Jones is a Blackfeet Native American author with over 20 titles to his name. He holds degrees from Florida State University, University of North Texas and Texas Tech University. A native of Texas, Jones is currently the Ivena Baldwin Professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder. For more information be sure to visit his website.
Book Information
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones was released on July 14, 2020 from Gallery Saga Press with ISBN 9781982136451. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

I tried my best to read through this book, even knowing this one of the very few final drafts of the product. I couldn't grasp the syntax of how the writing was portrayed, it seemed more like I was reading a blog entry rather than a story or a narrative to engage in

Hello Gemmies! I have an exciting book review to share with you today. Please note: I received a digital ARC of this book (via NetGalley) from its publisher in exchange for an honest and fair review.


The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones is an adult horror revenge thriller. Holy elk batman...this is the ultimate revenge story and I can't get enough of it! I was NOT ready! Stephen Graham Jones has crafted a masterpiece story that is raw, powerful, intimate, and wonderful all at once. It took my breath away. This unique story is not only beautifully written, it is full of diverse, complex, interesting characters. The Only Good Indians follows four young Indigenous men, Lewis, Cassidy, Ricky, and Gabe who find themselves fighting for their lives against an entity who wants revenge after an event that occurred ten years earlier. I felt such an affinity with each of the protagonists. I was fully invested in their lives and my heart broke as events unfolded for them. The story is told from each man's point of view and it's a bit confusing at first, but the world building in this novel is incredibly detailed and gritty. We get glimpses of contemporary Indigenous life...the good and the bad. Trigger warning, there are several instances of animal cruelty and violence. In The Only Good Indians we see the hunter become the prey and are reminded that we cannot run away from ourselves or our actions.



If you are a fan of speculative fiction, revenge tales, brotherhood, contemporary Indigenous life, and unexpected horror, then go read this book! This gem published by Gallery | Saga Press is available for purchase from all major booksellers. I give The Only Good Indians 4 out of 5 gems. Happy Reading!

This review appears on Goodreads, www.aidenmerchant.com, and has been submitted to Amazon for approval:

(3.5 out of 5)
Here’s a novel I’ve heard about countlessly over the last three to six months. Having missed out on the craze surrounding the other recent Jones book, Mongrels – a title I have since picked up, but not yet read – I was hoping to board this train in time for its public release. Though I’m a couple weeks late, The Only Good Indians is still a fresh pick on the shelves, at least.

This is my first time reading Jones, though I’ve been hearing about him a lot since joining the online community of book readers/reviewers. Now that I’ve got a taste for him, I’ll say he reminds me a lot of Paul Tremblay. His writing has a very personal narration to it, like you’re following the rapid thoughts of the characters in focus. It’s generally quick, messy, and a bit twitchy. This style works well in suspense, so the horror sequences here were very powerful. However, for those in between scenes – like all that basketball playing – it caused my mind to slip away from the page. But we will circle back to that momentarily.

In this novel, you have four childhood friends that have done something cruel during a hunting trip in their youth. Now, years later, an entity comes seeking revenge on them. It’s not only an exciting idea, it’s made uniquely special by Jones’s use of Native American characters and traditions. I especially liked Lewis’s story (and conclusion) in all this, even if Gabe and Cass were the ones featured in a haunting massacre that claims a handful of lives. Lewis was the character you found yourself attached to with relative ease. You cared about him and his life, his anxiety and fears, his mounting suspicion and obsession over the Elk Head Woman. And for this reason, his part of the book was the best.

When things go dark in The Only Good Indians, they go really dark. Jones kills his characters off with blissful and violent ease – I loved it. And the ending fit just right. So why am I not giving this a higher score? For one, all the basketball bored me. I enjoy playing sports, but not reading or watching them. Maybe 15% or more of this book consisted of basketball games and warm-ups. I just didn’t care. I also found scenes outside of the horrific action unable to hold my attention, and part of that was due to the writing style. With the way some things were explained – often in run-on narrations – I found myself confused more than once, having to then reread paragraphs to figure out what I missed. If I lost focus for even a second (whether it was because he was talking basketball or something else I wasn’t connecting with for whatever reason), it seemed like I would lose complete understanding of the thread. Readers with attention deficit disorders (like myself) may struggle like I did, as a result of this writing style. It’s not to say Jones did something wrong – it’s just that his word slinging can be challenging at times to follow.

It was because I found myself somewhat frequently daydreaming during this title that I landed on the score of 3.5 – I recognize how great a story this is and how freakishly dark it can get, but I also have to acknowledge the trouble I had with it off and on. Nevertheless, with The Only Good Indians, I have discovered for myself the expertise and imagination of SGJ; and in reflection, I will look forward to reading more from him.

Review by Aiden Merchant

www.aidenmerchant.com (Also on Instagram, Twitter, Goodreads, and Amazon)
contact@aidenmerchant.com (Message for review consideration)

I had very mixed feelings about this book. I really liked the characters and the clear characterization that came through their narration. However, the pacing felt very off. About halfway through the book, it felt finished, even though I had an idea of the remaining major plot points. It was a struggle to pick it back up after that. This may be because the actual supernatural occurrence was still mysterious until that point; it becomes a different story after Lewis's portion of the narrative. I regained my momentum while reading Cass and Gabe's stories, but then stalled out again at the utter misery of the climactic scene at the sweat. The lead-up cultivated a really good sense of creeping dread, but the level of suffering ultimately tipped over into being a bit too elaborate. This is the first novel that I've read by this author and I'd like to read more because I suspect this one just wasn't totally for me.

It's hard to put into words exactly what I loved about this book but I'm going to try the best that I can. The first thing is that I loved the characters. Especially Lewis. His was the hardest story to read, it was the most moving for me than all the others. I just connected with him more, I'm sure that was intentional but his part was the best. He wasn't the only great character though, it was wonderful to read about all these four men how they had changed over the years. Whether it was for good or bad.

I loved the atmosphere of the book. It was just palpable. There was always this underlying sense of dread with each page but I think that is what makes Stephen Graham Jones such a great writer. To feel that through the pages. That's a gift.
The first half of the book I think was better than the back half but at the same time I felt like it all came together. There was fun details that brought a lot of things together between Lewis' story and the back half of the book which I just found so interesting. It was violent and graphic. It's not for the lighthearted. There is some gore described and in fairly great detail. So be wary of that, there is also references to animal death so if that's something that you don't like, this might not be for you.

The intensity of that dread went to eleven as the back half of the book continued and I found my stomach in knots with worry about what was going to happen next. The ending was bittersweet for me. I thought it all came together, that circle of life that I think we all can appreciate was at play here. I highly recommend <em>The Only Good Indians</em> if you like suspenseful horror with a bit of gore. I can't wait to read another of Stephen Graham Jones' books that I was approved for on Netgalley. I really enjoyed this one and I hope that you consider buying it. It's worth every penny!

Let’s not beat around the bush: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones is the chewiest new read of the summer.

At the novel’s core is a cascade of decisions that four young men made on an elk hunt when they were young. Decisions that were meant to swerve wide of various ethical codes. But the extreme elasticity that Ricky, Lewis, Gabe, and Cassidy exerted on that day snaps back hard, haunting them literally and figuratively years later.

The Only Good Indians belongs to a rare set of novels. It provokes you to read faster and faster because the plotting and horror forms are so brilliantly built that you want to swallow, or be swallowed by, them. Yet, the dynamics of identity and relationships are so sophisticated and subtle that you need to pause, bookmark the page, and tangle with the ideas at play in whatever passage you just read. This tension between plot, formal horror techniques, and theoretical complexity makes The Only Good Indians a masterclass in horror--specifically the chewy kind of horror that deposits a slow-smoldering ember of dread alongside critical questions about living in a mesh of social structures that define and shape people’s lives.

The novel opens explosively with a compact 12-page chapter for Ricky. Other characters’ chapters unfold in their own longer but distinctly-paced burns. Ricky’s chapter opens, and closes, with a pair of phrases: “INDIAN MAN KILLED IN DISPUTE OUTSIDE BAR. That’s one way to say it.” The all-caps statement is what the newspaper headline of the event will read, and the subsequent statement is a narratorial remark. Together, these statements inform the reader that we’re about to enter a tangle of identity and racism, deadly violence, and disparities in how the events are told. At this point of the novel, these combined elements resonate with lived experiences and news stories. But the events of the chapter, in all their humor and terror, reframe the pair of phrases so that on the last page they still include familiar racist violence and journalistic voice as well as the challenges in telling tales of hauntings.

One more note on the first chapter, its title is “Williston, North Dakota.” The setting conjures up fossil fuel extractivism as well as the #NoDAPL Dakota Access Pipeline protests of 2016. What’s brilliant is the way Jones establishes the setting and then leaves that simple act of naming city and state to reverberate through the chapter without making more explicit connections between petro-culture, the ghost elk, Ricky, and the white roughnecks. The horrific history of displacement and exploitation specific to this place inhabits the chapter in an unsettling yet nuanced wavelength. As such, the chapter and novel as a whole are not about the US history of displacement, exploitation, and annihilation; but it’s also not not-about this history of horror too. Jones’s technique is like a literary equivalent of the David Lynch sound design that’s come to be known as “intense ominous whooshing.”

Having mentioned David Lynch’s aesthetics, Stephen Graham Jones wields a similar acuity in creating unsettling affective juxtapositions. For example, over a few pages in the second chapter, we join Lewis in his experience of wide ranging emotions as suspicions pivot into bloodbath. Lewis questions who exactly the other people currently in his life are and how they relate to him through gender and racial identity, and then just as he moves out one meta-level to question how complicit his suspicions are in terms of racist ideologies, the scene goes brutally violent as if driven by a power external to Lewis. Before readers can recover from this whiplash shift from detective, to intellectual, to perpetrator of violence, Lewis, coated in fresh gore, takes note of his mind absurdly going to the prospect of getting his rental deposit back. It’s a belly laugh moment that intensifies the wide- and wild-ranging montage of embodied affects. Jones has mastered the literary version of this move that Lynch has mastered cinematically, plus, when Jones does it, the discomfort he generates pushes readers to tarry with the critical matters at the core of the people in the scene and the novel as a whole.
A short double detour here to say that if you’d love to read Stephen Graham Jones nerd out on David Lynch’s cinema, there’s a brilliant interview with him by Rob King to check out. And, I couldn’t help but put the instrumental ceiling fan in Lewis’s chapter into conversation with the ceiling fan in Twin Peaks that connects two dimensions within the Palmer house.
Another compelling reason to read The Only Good Indians is the perspective its haunting gives to humans coexisting with nonhuman beings on Earth. For the human beings and elk alike, this is a story of parents and children. Family ethics and instincts run parallel along these story lines. And the elk work like a metonymy for the nonhuman elements of the planet, so that their return to haunt and kill the human hunters who acted unethically may stand in for human ecological crimes of diverse scopes and scales. In this sense, the novel makes an intriguing complement to Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
Then there’s also the basketball. Olga Tokarczuk samples William Blake’s poetry in her weird novel of human hunters being vengefully murdered. Jones delivers granular descriptions of practicing and playing basketball with different stakes on the line. It’s zany, in the genre context of horror. It’s germane in the historical context of “Indian Schools” in the US where basketball was supposed to serve as a tool of assimilation but was torqued instead to function as a resistance tool of détournement. What’s more, basketball is what makes the novel a work of love and quirk rather than a smooth running attempt to match a writer’s workshop algorithm for literary genre fiction. In a wonderful, goofy way, the basketball in The Only Good Indians pinged for me the memory of those Scooby Doo episodes when Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Fred, and Daphne crossed paths with the Harlem Globetrotters. Investigating mysteries and shooting hoops may seem a counterintuitive partnership, but it works since they both involve anticipating the other’s moves, concentrating offensively and defensively, and drawing on fundamental skills and spontaneous intuition.
Finally, the Final Girl. Summaries of the novel focus on the four men in the hunting party. But women feature prominently across the three long chapters, and if we count the cow elk, across all the chapters. Among the women in the novel, the most thrilling and forceful is Denorah. She’s a prodigy on the court, though on the court Denorah must constantly negotiate who she is by what moves she executes and resists. She brings her tenacity and competitive drive to the final showdown of the story as well. When she was younger, Denorah acquired the nickname Final Girl from her father, but it’s in reference to a basketball tournament, giving the well-known horror genre trope a twist.
Denorah’s nickname innovation is clever in itself, but it also directs readers’ attention to the values, struggles, and ideas that come bundled up with her specifically as the novel’s Final Girl. You get the distinct impression that Jones has put the Final Girl moniker to work with a philosophical sense of the critical potential the trope holds, as Carol Clover and others following her lead in Men, Women, and Chainsaws have explored. At heart, the novel innovates brilliantly upon the conventional horror trope of the Final Girl, and bundled with this new embodiment is an intersectional perspective on American history as American horror.
That’s what sets The Only Good Indians apart from so many other horror novels, and really just other novels in general: a wellspring of complex critical ideas percolating within the dextrous storytelling and oddball sense of humor.
Imagine the smartest, weirdest parts of Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Evolution, David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, and Nick Estes’s Our History is the Future. If that sounds amazing, then crack open The Only Good Indians.

First of all, story aside – the writing is absolutely incredible. The Only Good Indians is a masterpiece. Every single word is like a punch to the gut. This is the first book in a long time that hammered me so hard, and so relentlessly that I actually had to walk away from it for a day once I hit part 2 and read something else.

The characters’ flaws definitely take center stage in this story. The four men at the center of the tale all did something incredibly stupid that flew in the face of their tribe’s tradition, and they have to pay the price for that. The social commentary present in this book is just incredible. While it is steeped in tradition, he also has a whole a lot to say about the apparent realities of contemporary life for American Indians (Please note, I am saying this ONLY as an outside observer who spent a chunk of my life living near reservations and visiting friends who lived there – I’ve never lived there myself – hence the “apparent” – I fully trust his Own Voices narrative, I just don’t want you to think I am co-opting this knowledge as my own). I also find it fascinating that each man has in some way been punishing himself LONG before the “entity bent on revenge” ever comes near them. The entity is kind of just there to finish the job.

Nature has a way of returning the balance and if you are the one to disrupt the flow, you will pay. The Only Good Indians is a visceral experience in Native American heritage, customs, and culture. Jones weaves a dark and haunting story of disrupting the progression of nature. The reader is left with a feeling of being watched and can feel how each character is haunted by their past actions. Jones expertly interlocks a horror story with Native American culture and injustices. The horror comes from both what the Native American men did in their youth and what they encounter from their every day lives. As an #ownvoice author, this book may not be for everyone. The pace is a little slower than usual and is seeped in Native American culture which may not resonate with everyone. The character development was not fully developed and would have liked more depth to what the incident had done to them personally.

Now here's a horror book to sink your teeth into!

Four young Indian men out on their last elk hunt of the season cross into forbidden territory when they notice a herd and don't think they'll be caught. They kill and butcher nine of the animals including one they wouldn't have shot had they known her secret. This one act will be the undoing of these four men when ten years later revenge comes knocking at their doors.
This is a wholly original tale told by an #ownvoices author about Indian culture that is at once heartbreaking and then hopeful. It is written with a very unique writing style that I found both alienating and intimate at times but always captivating and engrossing. I loved the realness of the characters and the plight they find themselves, and those closest to them, in. There is a bit of gore but nothing a horror novel fan will mind. This is the first book by this author I have read and am now really intrigued to read his other books. I highly recommend this one.

This story was a whirlwind ride. It's the story of some Indians on/from a reservation that take to hunting elk that they don't have permission to hunt. They are haunted by the events of that night 10 years later in a series of events. They story is about them trying to outrun their demons. Will they be able to avoid the hauntings of their past?

My favorite part about this is the culture of the natives that is strewn throughout this story. It's a great unique story. The story kept my attention and sent me on a rollercoaster of emotions. I needed to know what was going to happen next. With the necessary increased interest in #ownvoices, I highly recommend this book. Especially if you like horror and thriller stories.

I was not expecting much, but this story genuinely surprised me. Even weeks after finishing the book, I keep finding myself thinking back on this creepy, thrilling, and completely original story. It is refreshing to read a truly unique horror story.

Thank Netgalley for my copy of this book. I give this review voluntarily.

This is an unforgettable novel. There were so many delightful plot twists and turns the narrative took that I did not see coming. The villain, Elk Head Woman, was truly haunting and the overall tone of paranoia, and dread for characters' impending doom created was remarkable. The pace was slower than expected, and the narration for some characters bordered on stream of consciousness, which took a little adjusting on my part in order to get into the novel, but once done the tale was so gripping that I didn't want to put it down. The slow burn is completely worth it once you reach the ending, which ties everything together in a genius, circular, and satisfying way. The social, political, and cultural commentary on the history of the United States and the ongoing discrimination Natives still face in the country was revelatory without seeming preachy. This book is a gift, and it's an absolute privilege for us non-Natives to be able to read it.

The Only Good Indians caught my eye because of the cultural aspect or what I thought would be a learning of an Indian culture. I must say that as I read the stories I was feeling like they were unique, nothing banal about them, and I was getting a good dose of horror. That being said, I did feel some ambiguity because of the horror and violence. I used to teach Multicultural Literature and I think my seniors would have really liked this one and that it would definitely have brought up some good discussions.

The book's first story is something else and sets the pace immediately. The pace of the story was fast, but not too fast. I felt like the pace fit the intensity and just like the characters I felt my heart racing and wondering what in the world is really going on here? Because there's this story of an elk hunt, and Elk Woman and the question of how a culture feels about spirits came to play in my mind as well. It's hard to describe, and I'm not even sure I really want to, just how effective the violence and intrigue impacted me as I was reading.

I also couldn't help but to think (here's a digression) about my trip to Alaska and Yellowstone National Park. In Alaska I saw wild moose and they are humongous, as they can weigh well over 1000 pounds and get around 6 feet or more tall! I also know that elk can get to be about 500 pounds and close to five feet tall, so I had a pretty good visual of elk hunting. I know that if the three boys who were all friends had an "issue" with an elk, it was going to be bad.

I do think that this book has some rather disturbing scenes and ones that if I had been watching on a movie screen I would've had to look away; however, that's the beauty of reading for me. I can much more easily "see" something in its totality than I can on a screen.

Kudos to the author and a huge thank you to NetGalley and to Gallery Pocket Books / Saga Press for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review, which is my own opinion.
#TheOnlyGoodIndians #NetGalley

Four Native American young men commit an horrific act and 10 years later the victim wants revenge. This just isn’t my kind of book. I am not a big fan of horror and I didn’t find any of this frightening. It also wasn’t explained by Native American lore or any other way. Frankly, if any of this were remotely possible there would be a lot more dead people and I wouldn’t miss them. There is a lot of unpleasant violence: “Maybe half a second after her neck breaks, the top of her head scalps off and her forehead tilts loosely down into the rear wheel, the spokes shearing skull as easy as anything, carving down into the pulpy-warm outside of her brain.” There is also elk hunting and some dogs are stomped to death. If that’s your thing you might like this book more than I did. The book also has a lot of basketball and basketball jargon which I didn’t care about and couldn’t really follow. I am clearly not the audience for this book.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

This reads almost like a Native American folktale with a moral at the end. It had lots of fast-paced scenes and more than a few horror scenes to grip the reader. The strength of a mother's love and retribution is central to the novel. Most interesting to me were the descriptions of rez life and the daily struggle of the people who lived there as well as the excellent descriptions of the landscape surrounding them.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery/Saga Press for the ARC to read and review.