Thanks to NetGalley and Saga Press for an ARC of this title.

I requested this title because of the praise from Tommy Orange, whose [book:There There|36692478][book:There There|36692478] I read and loved last year. Like Orange, Stephen Graham Jones is a native author writing about native characters, and it gives this horror story a distinct flavor that really captured details in a way I think authors without that lived experience might fail to do.

The first section took a little bit to "click" for me, but the two sections that followed picked up the pace and felt nailbiting. This is a book about nature taking revenge on the men that wronged her, and it truly shocked me in places I didn't expect it to go.

The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.

Imagine if Jordan Peele merged with Native American culture and they had a horror baby. I loved this one. At first, I was so perplexed by the strangeness of the novel. This entity that follows these men and what happens to them truly had my jaw dropped and I could not stop reading this book. On the surface, this book is confusing and weird and scary. When you look deeper, this book has such symbolic significance that I couldn't stop thinking about it, even now. It bringing up such poignant themes about what it means to take from nature and how nature bites back. It brings up social issues about stereotypes and crumbling life on reservations creating when Native Americans were forced onto them. I would dare to classify this book as literary fiction/ horror. SGJ did a masterful job and, as this is an own voice novel, I loved his perspective he brought. I would encourage you to have an open mind and dig deep when reading this book and DO NOT just take it for what it is on the surface. Really dive deep and think about the themes of this book. They are so important.

I could not get into this, I read for 20% and had no idea what was going on. The writing was beautiful but I am not a native so it was confusing.

Thank you for accepting my request, I am sorry I couldn’t give a better review.

"The land claims what you leave behind."

July is shaping up to be a horror-centric reading month for me. I read Paul Tremblay's latest novel last week, and plan to read Riley Sager's newest haunted house story later this month. In between is the work of new-to-me author Stephen Graham Jones. The blurb for The Only Good Indians compared his writing to that of Tremblay, so I knew I would be in for a treat. I quickly requested a copy of the book from the publisher and was pleased when they sent one my way. It proved to be a visceral exploration of coming to terms with the past and dealing with all the grisly consequences.

Years ago, a group of young American Indian men made a reckless decision. The foursome snuck onto land that was protected by their native Blackfeet tribe. The light of the moon illuminated a herd of elk peacefully grazing amongst the sacred field, unaware of the slaughter that was about to come. Each of the boys killed one of the animals in cold blood, breaking the bond between man and nature that their ancestors had protected for so long, an irreversible rift that would follow the boys for the rest of their lives.

Years later, Lewis and the other guys all feel as if they've buried the past. None of them speak of the horrible things they did that fateful night. Lewis is still haunted by the mother elk that he killed, still sees the lifeless body of her unborn calf. He's on the ladder in his living room, fiddling with a light fixture that seems to have a mind of its own, when he notices the figure. His eyes must be playing tricks on him. Through the circling blades of the ceiling fan, Lewis swears he saw an elk standing there in the middle of his home. Only this was no ordinary animal. She was standing on two legs with an almost human-like quality to her. Is his mind playing tricks on him, or is this the beginning of something more sinister? Is nature finally seeking revenge?

There is something completely unsettling about The Only Good Indians. Stephen Graham Jones has written a novel that feels almost ritualistic in its brutality. It is the kind of horror that makes you feel as if you would be better off not witnessing what is unfolding but dares you to keep looking. After a wild opening that completely sucked me in, the novel stalled for the first quarter or so. There was character building, but I can't say that I was invested in Lewis or his life. It was the strength of wanting to know more about his mysterious vision that kept me reading. Fortunately, a violent event at the end of the first act really turned up the momentum. From then on, the novel maintained a perfect balance between gory horror thrills and well-drawn character building. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the book features graphic descriptions of violence, death toward both humans and animals. Still, The Only Good Indians delivers as a gory horror thrill ride and interesting take on culture and revenge.

This book is spooky as hell. The kind of glance-over-your-shoulder feeling. The premise: four young Blackfeet men go into the woods to poach elk on a snowy late-autumn night. Now, ten years later, they are reaping the consequences of that fateful night. That sounded interesting enough to me. I was intrigued if not scared. This one creeps up on you. It took about a third of the book to hit, but hit me it did.

As with any horror, the plot involves a lot of suspense so I won't go into details. There are plenty of content warning for this, I'm sure, so check them out before going in if you are sensitive. I will say that the story is gritty and dark. It's a book about Native Americans and leans into that hard, in the best way. The Blackfeet identity of the main characters is central to the story and the author is very direct about the brutal realities of existence as a Native American in modern America, whether it's mass-incarceration and over-policing, racial violence, poverty or substance abuse. I appreciated the author's frankness and allowing this to be a truly "American" story with all our numerous flaws. Equally, the horror is closely tied to Blackfeet folklore making this truly unique (to me, at least) to the traditional horror you might usually see.

I did lose my footing a bit at one point due to an abundance of basketball references. As someone not terribly familiar with any sport, I found myself struggling to picture some of the goings-on as they related to the game. The inclusion of lots of basketball descriptions was a bit of a confusing choice to me in general and took me out of the horror a bit but this is a personal preference.

Overall, just a super enjoyable read, I flew though it.

This one is 3.5 stars I'm rounding up. You know from completing the phrase that is the title of this book that it's going to involve death, and it really does. The premise is a little bit like, what if the adage that Native Americans use every part of the buffalo/deer/etc has an "or else" tacked onto the end?

The book weaves through many subgenres of horror, starting as a haunted house story and ending with a monster. It's the beginning and the end that buoyed this story for me, because that's when it's at its most vivid and weird and horrific. The middle just sagged for me, and I almost put it down. I'm glad I didn't.

Apart from the middle not grabbing me, I thought the book had a couple other weaknesses. For something that's marketed as horror, I was never more than very mildly spooked, which was something of a disappointment. There is a lot of gore and so much vomit in this book, which you know, it's a horror novel, but it's maybe a little overly reliant on it instead of building actual dread.

The other thing was the voice of the writing. I will say this is my own issue, but it has that "tough guy with an MFA" style that I find a little too precious for my tastes.

All that said, I'm intrigued by the ideas in this novel, which I don't think are interested in being neatly resolved. I hope I can read some criticism of this book by Indigenous writers who have more insight than I on what this book has to say about the state of Indigenous people in the U.S. and Native women in particular.

***Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.***

The Only Good Indians was like one of the rides at a theme park that is not really a rollercoaster. You just kind of roll through it and then, just to keep it interesting, there is a plunge just to get your heart going. That's what reading this book felt like. It just kind of meandered along and you looked at the scenery. Then something would get exciting. You kept cycling through this ride. We had a thrilling premise, though not completely original. And we had the intriguing aspect of Indigenous people being the main characters. But, it just slowed down so often and seemed familiar enough to not really be a 4 or 5 star read. If I could do 3.5, I would. There is nothing really bad about the story, but it doesn't seem to hit any new highs or have the suspense I was hoping for.

The Only Good Indians has been quite a wild and unique ride. This own voices horror novel presents the story of four Native American friends who are haunted by an incident that happened ten years ago. They now suffer the consequences of their actions, while also coming to terms with their own personal traumas.
I really enjoyed the atmospheric and beautiful writing, and how the inequalities and oppression committed against Native Americans is explored through the means of the horror genre. Be wary of very gory and violent scenes, that will creep you out and make you jump out of your seat.
The only thing that made me disconnect at times from the story were the constant references to basketball. I understood that the sport was important for the characters, but since I am not a big fan, those frequent references and descriptions of the matches made me struggle a bit to remain focused.
All in all, this was a very solid and original horror story that I would totally recommend, especially if you are fan of those more gory stories.

More than a horror story, there is a social commentary to this novel. Jones gives the reader a very raw look at the internalization of harmful behavior, not only outside of the reservation but from within as well. But more than how the Native Americans are treated and seen in the United States, there is the monster too, creepier and scarier, more because of what it begins as something we would never think of as frightening as a werewolf or vampire.

Bored with the zombie, vampire, and werewolf stories out there? Looking for something different for the monster story? Looking for characters more fleshed out than just fodder for the creature? I think The Only Good Indians will provide that for you. There will be some confusion, some convoluted, all over the place story, but it does begin to flow with a creeping dread, slow burn, unhinged reality to grab if you are patient.

As one of Jones's characters muses about the prospect of having children with a non-native, the guilt comes rushing in. After all, if he goes through with it, then "...the few of his ancestors who made it through raids and plagues, massacres and genocides, diabetes and all the wobbly-tired cars the rest of America was done with, they may as well have just stood up into that big Gatling gun of history, yeah?"

However, while the characters in this book do struggle with guilt over various misdeeds, they're not just lumpy sad sacks. Jones fully fleshes out his characters, making them not just compelling to follow, but real. I don't know these guys, obviously, but I've known guys like them. So it hurts to watch them mess up and it hurts more to watch them face danger. 

And they face a lot of danger. Each man has varying degrees of awareness of what is coming after them. But they've got so much on their plates already. They struggle with being good men, being good fathers, and being good natives. The last one is a struggle to which many natives can relate. Whether you're reconnecting, an urban native, or too rez for you, bro, life can sometimes feel like a balancing act between tradish and just trying to thrive.

And that's all without having something hunting you down. To that end, the book at its core is a fairly simple story. However, Jones, whom I've not read before, is immensely talented at coloring in vivid details. There's a game of 21, for instance, that reads as gripping and as suspenseful as anything I've read before. (If that seems unusual, it's not. Natives love basketball.)

The monster at the end of this book (and the beginning and the middle) is no snooze, either. It's awesome, in the older sense of the word, sympathetic, and wholly original. So even as you feel for the men, you also feel for their stalker. That's quite a trick to pull, but Jones pulls it off. 

Overall, as you might have guessed, I loved this book. It's not traditional horror--I cried at the end and it didn't give me nightmares like Aftermath of an Industrial Accident--but it is a bloody masterpiece. And beyond the violence, just like the bigger story of natives, it's a bright and moving portrait of a people who didn't crumple, who still fight, who still live and love. If you've never read Stephen Graham Jones before, as I hadn't, then this is the perfect time to start.

Fans of graphic supernatural/creature horror take note: Stephen Graham Jones's 'The Only Good Indians' is an interesting read. The primary narrative behind the horror story is fairly simple and straightforward: a decade ago, a group of friends did something wrong on a hunt, and now their past is catching up to them, with grim consequences. Suffice it to say, there wouldn't be much value to the reader for me to reveal more details about the plot than are present in the jacket material. That said, the interest in this story lies in the manner in which it is told, and the implications of the details.

The author's narrative style is very colloquial; without having read any of Jones's other work, I can't say whether that is consistently his style, or if it was used intentionally to add to the sense of a quasi-storytelling tone, or as a reference to American Indian oral storytelling tradition. Either way, it feels unusual and idiosyncratic, but effective. Further, the author has an interesting way of fluidly shifting narrative perspective between characters and shifting voice between third-person and second-person, sometimes even within the same paragraph, without transitional markers. This has the at-times exciting, at-times confusing effect of pulling you in and out of various characters' heads, bouncing back and forth between being "in" a character, being "addressed as" a character, and being a "reader/listener". Some may find this off-putting, and it did have the effect of preventing the reader from becoming fully invested in any one character (because there was no central protagonist). I found that this actually helped balance the simplicity of the plot by adding an element of uncertainty, making it more difficult to predict exactly where or how the story was going.

Another layer of interest came from the color of the details. The characters were complex, very flawed, and believable, at least to someone with very limited experience in or around indigenous reservations and peoples. The setting of the Blackfeet Reservation was presented in a rather bleak manner, and the author's humor swung wildly from lighthearted to sharply sardonic. Adding to the general feeling of instability lent by the shifting perspectives and voices was the deceptive quickness with which the author slipped from both light and darkly humorous tones to abrupt, grisly horror. The effect was quite shocking, and the imagery was often disturbing, but it never felt gratuitous. Jone's detailed and descriptive writing was quite provocative, rife with cultural commentary and questions of agency, identity, and generational trauma, lending a depth and poignancy to the story not found in many horror novels.

Four stars out of five; recommended for mature readers.

During a testosterone-filled hunting trip, four lifetime friends in their twenties, Ricky, Lewis, Cassidy, and Gabe, violate Blackfeet tribal law and custom. Subsequently, Ricky and Lewis leave the reservation. Ricky meets a quick death in a bar fight, but Lewis marries a white woman, works at the post office, and seems content. However, as the tenth-year anniversary of their hunting trip approaches, a malevolent force intent on vengeance stalks the remaining three men.

WHAT I LIKED: I enjoyed the inclusion of Blackfeet customs and experience both on the reservation and off, and the explorations of lineage, of the love and tensions between fathers and sons and daughters. Though difficult, thought Lewis’s feelings about being married to a white woman were revealing. For most of the book, the pacing was superb, and I was biting my nails in anticipation of what would happen to the characters. Gabe’s daughter, Denorah, a competitive basketball star with a touch of Gabe’s rebellion but a bigger heart was a great character. Perhaps what I liked most about the book, though, was that the force created a sense of paranoia in the men that spiraled into an out-of-control and all-consuming madness.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME: The book had gruesome, explicit, and extensive scenes of animal deaths that were too much for me. Besides Denorah, most female characters were one-dimensional or sacrificial which bothered me. Additionally, I could never quite understand the rules governing the “force” and that took me out of the story.

Empathizing with both the protagonists and the villain (and trying to decide who was who) was an interesting aspect of reading the book, giving Jones a challenge in how to end the story without disappointing readers. I found the conclusion very satisfying.

I think this book will be a must for horror aficionados and those interested in Native American Literature.

I read a few chapters of this and unfortunately am not really vibing with it. Still giving it 3 stars on here because it seems like it would be a good book for the right people, but I am just not very into the writing style and also it seems to be a bit more literary and a bit less horror than I personally would like.

Not my kind of read. I had difficulty pushing through to make it through to the "good" parts - the scary stuff! For me, this book is so deeply culturally referential that I don't get a lot of the references and social commentary the author is making (which is usually my favorite part of any book) - and I understand this, because I prefer reading books about my own culture that are like that too, so I get why it would be in some ways counterproductive for the author to explain all of the references he inserts. It just doesn't work for me as a reader and really reminds me of a modern-day Native American version of an old Western, complete with bar fights and hunting through snow, etc., so not really my jam, but I can see how it would work for other readers!

This was an interesting premise for a story. Four Blackfeet friends go hunting and one realizes he made a mistake and wants to try and do right by what he did. Fast forward ten years and the friends have drifted apart and now something is stalking them from their past to avenge what they did. At first the story is slow and boom something happens. The the middle is slow again and boom something happens. The last 10% picks up the pace and has you on the edge of your seat to a satisfying ending. I don’t mind a slow build up but this was more like stopping one story and starting another because of a shift in characters. It didn’t have that smooth transition of a continuation of the story like the character change near the end did. Overall, it was entertaining and fresh and I enjoyed the story and the Native American culture.

Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians is a harrowing horror novel about retribution and the consequences of running from your past. Ricky, Gabe, Cass, and Lewis grew up together on the Blackfeet reservation. After a hunting incident that gets them banned from taking part ever again, the friend group slowly drifts apart. But no matter how much time has passed from that fateful night, none of them can outrun what happened and what their actions gave birth to. Graham Jones takes each of his characters and pushes them to the brink, where they begin to question reality and then slowly pulls the loose thread, unraveling their sanity. Though The Only Good Indians has a slow start, once it reaches its climax, Graham Jones slams on the gas and takes readers on one of the most unrelenting, brutal endings I’ve ever read. Just when you think the story could not get any wilder, Graham Jones guts you and leaves you in a state of shock. The Only Good Indians takes no prisoners and is a must read for horror fans everywhere.

From the horror books I have read over the years, I believe that it is difficult to put into words whatever is needed to scare a reader. Words are not as effective as images (which is why movies can make us jump) and it takes a special blend to engage that visceral fear and bring it out of hiding.

It was the combination of words that first aroused my interest. Author Stephen Graham Jones wrote “The Only Good Indians” in a semi-rambling deep-from-the-heart mode, and one can feel a cultural aspect seep through the pages and help mold the story. This is a tale of four friends who were introduced to their culture but never quite understood it, never embraced it, never believed in its power until it took hold of them in all its fury and proceeded to teach an unforgettable lesson.

Be forewarned: When you reach the final 20% of this book, it will be impossible to stop reading. The author begins with a mute fear, that feeling that creeps up your back when you know you shouldn’t walk in that old house or that dark basement, but you tell yourself everything is okay and do it anyway. That fear builds into a pulse pounding horror that drives a reader all the way to the final words.

This story was my introduction to Stephen Graham Jones, and the power of the tale already has me looking to see which one of his previous books I want to read next. Highly recommended. Five stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Gallery/Saga Press for a complimentary electronic copy of this book.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
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Four Native American men go on a hunting trip that goes horribly wrong. Years later, Lewis has moved away from the reservation but is still deeply impacted by what he saw that day. When strange things start to happen, Lewis is convinced that he is being hunted by an entity set on revenge from that fateful day years ago.
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This review is so hard for me to write because I was so excited to read this book. It’s also hard to rate, so let me say that while this was a 2 star read for me, I can easily see it being a 4 or 5 star read for someone else. I want to start with what I liked about this book. The story is really unique and it captured my attention right away. In fact, the reason I didn’t DNF this book is because I really wanted to see how the story ended! I also really enjoyed reading about the culture and the struggles of these Native American men. The author is a Blackfeet Native American himself, so the accounts of the lives of these men is genuine. I loved the diverse representation in this novel!
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Now, what I didn’t like 😩 I mentioned above that this book was almost a DNF for me. The author’s writing was a bit hard to follow at times, and I often had to reread sentences to make sense of what I was reading. Not a big deal to me, but something of note. The main reason I struggled with this novel is that it is incredibly gruesome. To be honest, I didn’t really think this book was that scary, but there were times I had to put it down due to graphic descriptions of death and murder. I recently started diving into horror and have really been enjoying the genre, but maybe the gorey side of horror just isn’t for me. BIG trigger warning: if you are bothered by graphic animal cruelty and detailed descriptions of bodily harm and murder, I would skip this one. Again, this one is so hard for me to review because the story is good, the characters are well developed, but it just wasn’t for me. If you are not easily bothered by gore then you might really enjoy it! Thank you Gallery and @netgalley for my advanced readers copy. The Only Good Indians will be released on 7/14 🦌

4.25ish stars.

The author writes his characters so naturally, it's easy to tell that he <i>knows</i> them. They feel lived in and genuine. They are what make the novel work so well. These are real people, doing things we might do in their situations, not stupid horror novel/movie protagonists. It's disturbing and uncomfortable in all the right ways, and I'm so glad I've been able to jump on the SGJ bandwagon.

This book is amazing. You will never imagine any part of the deer family as being gentle again. Four men do a foolish, ugly thing and the fallout is bitter and widespread. The ending is brilliant and hopeful and it made me cry. Perhaps there is hope from a future generation.