I will start by saying I have never read a book quite like this one. It was unique both in that it was a collection of short stories all written and published at different times that together read like a novel and in terms of the content. I would describe the content as having some themes similar to a Douglas Stuart novel, with characters and a setting similar to the Reservation Dogs TV shows, and some magical realism thrown in. All that being said, it was a book I appreciated more than loved. It's a strong work of fiction, but the heavy themes and magical realism plot elements made it difficult for me to read and follow at times. I can see how others have rated it highly, but it wasn't a personal favorite for me.

Set in a Native Community in Maine, these stories follow David at different points in his life. There is a lot of sorrow and tragedy as well as tenderness and love between family members.

"Talty’s debut story collection is a wonderfully understated work with sneaky emotional force, anchored by a memorable main character and the author’s keen understanding of childhoods that have been marked by instability."

From my Library Journal review.

Thank you netgalley and Tin House for the advance copy.

This short story collection is excellent. And it's a bit like a novel since the stories are all about the same family and from the perspective of David over different times in his life.

The writing is excellent and searing. David's family has a lot going on and a lot of trauma over the generations. The way that the stories jump back and forth in time is also heartbreaking because we get a glimpse of little David and then we see the world through 28 year old David's eyes, and then back and forth. There is a lot of sadness in the book.

A collection of short stories over the course of David's life as an indigenous youth growing up on an island in Maine, Night of the Living Rez manages to cover a lot of points in a person's life where things go wrong, come back together, don't work out, and somehow come to something of a resolution anyway if only for a while. We're not here to judge David, his mom, his sister, his mom's boyfriend, his dad or any of his friends. This is a book that shares an experience with the idea of expressing the quiet things between the moments, the little ways that a person is made, molded, and broken apart as their life happens in the hope that it we can listen and witness them for a while we might understand a little better. We get inside of these feelings without intruding on these lives as they unfold somehow, remembering our distance and proximity to them at once. It's a genuinely well written short collection about resonance, loss, grief, and the complexities of living with everything shifting and changing all around you. I hope to see more from Morgan Talty in the future!

This book is so great. It's not what I expected and a new genre for me to read, but I loved it. It was very interesting, intriguing, and enlightening reading these various short stories of life on the rez for these Native Americans, though after reading this book, I hesitate to say Native American because it's mentioned in one story that it's not always preferred to be called that. I hope I've never upset or offended someone because I called them Native American. There's so much to navigate and learn about other cultures, we really have no clue unless we ask.
In this book, there are various stories, mostly with the same characters throughout, but in different scenarios and settings. It shows and tells so much about the people and the life on the rez. There's so much heartache, happiness, sadness, and everything illustrated by these stories bringing these people, their stories, and this reservation to life. After reading these stories, it makes me want to know more about these people and more curious about what else I don't know about how they do things differently or look at things in another way.
This is a great, enlightening, and enriching read that left me wondering and wanting more as well as examining myself and a reminder of how I shouldn't assume things about others or anything. I would definitely recommend this book to others for a brilliant look at life on the rez with thought-provoking stories.
Thanks so much to NetGalley and Tin House for letting me read and review this 5-star read. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

On the Real Reservation

“Night of the Living Rez” offers twelve short stories portraying life in Maine’s Native Penobscot Nation. Author Morgan Talty shows us seasons in the life of David, a young man growing up on the reservation with his family. It is a tough existence where the fear of an evil curse walks alongside the ravages of drug addiction and the stresses of poverty. David’s mother is in an abusive relationship with an alcoholic part-time medicine man. Methadone treatments are crucial crutches to David and his friends. His sister, Paige, is tragically sucked into mental illness spurred on by, among other things, the death of her baby from methadone withdrawal seizures. In one unforgettable chapter David’s grandmother, suffering from Alzheimer's, is convinced he is her long dead twelve year old brother. Rather than being repulsed, he is amazed that he can bring relief to his grandmother’s nightmare.

There is a lot of loss in these stories, but there is a consistent feed of wit and humor. David and his family have always had struggles and have the mindset to survive. These passages give a very believable account of real people, not stereotypes, and enable us to relate to problems in a community very different from the ones most of us know. Morgan Talty agreed with writer Louis Owens that he was not interested in giving just “a comfortable, easy tour of colorful Indian Country.” This is an incredible book penned by an exciting new voice.

“I mean, I can hear what Donald Trump once said as he testified before a House subcommittee about one tribe’s casino: ‘ They don’t look like Indians to me’” (Author in quote from advance reader copy).

Thank you to W. W. Norton and Company, Tin House Books, and NetGalley for providing the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #NightOfTheLivingRez #NetGalley

What an engrossing series of short stories. What a ride through their lives and struggles and trauma. Talty comes out of the gates with such raw force and intense reality through it all. Tying the stories altogether through a family's damage, illness, addiction, and much more, life on the rez is clearly painted as one of depression and tumult and a generations-long hopelessness... and, somehow, Talty captures a softness and some laughter as he brings his characters to the reader. A page-turner for sure, but also one to pause and take some breaks from as things settle in. If this is how he starts, I cannot wait to see his next works in the future.

This collection of short stories about a Penobscot Indian teenage boy in Maine is brutal at times but enlightening. Readers need to be prepared that there is little joy in the stories or in his life. The stories are put together in a way that makes the the book read like a novel but each can also be read as stand alone story. I hope this is just the start for Mogan Talty as this book proves that he is an important Native voice.

A collection of short stories that span the young life of a Penobscot boy who lives on a reservation in Maine. The stories vary in the book at the age of 12 into his later 20's telling different points of his life. It read more like a novel than short stories.

Most of the stories were sad, watching the peoples need for drugs, money, work and love. None of the stories were uplifting, but told of the hardships of the families and the life that people are born into. I ended up liking David, our main character. There was one story in particular that was absolutely gut wrenching to read. One story was a bit humorous, and most of them involved the need for drugs.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tin House for the advance e-copy.

This collection of interconnected short stories has been receiving a lot of hype as it nears publication. I was enthralled by Talty's writing, which is surprising, emotive, and informative. I loved learning new details about the Native American experience. Add in that the storytelling is propulsive, which isn't always the case with literary fiction. Talty is on my must-read list moving forward, and I can't wait to see what he cooks up next.

Source: DRC via NetGalley (Tin House)
Pub. Date: July 5, 2022
Synopsis: Goodreads

Why did I choose to read this book?

I do not usually request or read short story collections. I prefer a whole novel. But stories from indigenous communities in Maine was too good a description to pass up. A Mainer (Mainah) born and raised, I welcome the chance to hear more about where I am from. Native American history in Maine played a huge role in my K-12 education and I always want to learn more.

What is this book about?

You can read the synopsis by clicking the Goodreads link above, but as a reader this book was about the repetitive, insulated, discriminatory world that Native Americans live in when they stay on a reservation and interact with the outside world and how different generations deal with these situational pressures. It’s a glimpse into the life of a Native American life in Maine – which is a welcome addition to the body of literature that seems to favor the Plains or Southwest Native populations.

What is notable about the story?

As I was reading, my mind registered mostly hopelessness. It just is what it is, and everyone involved in this kind of life is handling it in their own way. I’m not even sure I would use the optimistic phrase “doing their best” to describe these stories, nor would i say “doing what’s necessary.” All of the characters in each of these stories seem to be buffeted about by forces beyond their control, and don’t have a chance to get their footing before something else comes along to sweep them away again.

I lived in rural Maine and I know what it feels like to have everyday be the same and the winter lasts forever and there’s no one there to help when you need it. I wish that I could say that all I wanted to do was escape but my experience was so limited that all I could see of the future was whatever was in front of me. Everything else was so big and beyond my ability to imagine – I got out accidentally thanks to my own naivete and ignorance: suddenly I was on the outside looking in, like a fish flopping outside of the tank it just jumped out of.

Reading Night of the Living Rez was like reading about my childhood, only so much worse and with infinitely less hope. Only a few escape, and those that stay do what they do to just dull the pain of having a reality in which they have very little choice or say. If you walk into this book with good intentions to help, or bad intentions to judge, you’re not listening. This reality is bigger than all of us, and its solution(s) would take so much more than anyone has ever been willing to give. Approach this book as a learner – gain a deeper understanding of the lives that we have asked our indigenous peoples to live in exchange for the retention of their traditions on a fraction of their own land – and at a bare minimum you should be furious about it.

Was anything not so great?

This book is described as “…twelve striking, luminescent stories…” but really we follow the same characters throughout. I almost didn’t request this book because I am not a fan of short story collections. These are separate stories, yes, and they jump back and forth in time, but I would argue that this is a novel that follows a native family through their lives on the Penobscot reservation. Far be it for me to say what a book is, but this was one story split into 12 chapters, not 12 different stories. I’ve been noticing more and more lately that synopses are slightly dishonest in their descriptions – I go into a book with preconceptions based on these synopses when the book is a different animal, slightly or entirely.

You want to sell this book as a set of short stories, fine, but it’s a set of chapters as a foundation of one story and I know the difference.

What’s the verdict?

This book is so important, bringing a point of view from an area of the country from which we don’t usually receive native stories. It’s very Maine and all of its parts are devastating. Well written and poignant, this one gets 4 stars on Goodreads. If you would like a dose of reality and new information about an area of the country you probably grew up thinking was part of Canada, pick this one up. What’s a little more hopelessness over yet another problem we cannot (and historically have proven we will not) solve?

Stark, yet compassionate story of living in a Penoscot Native community in Maine.. Billed as a collection of short stories, it reads more like a novel that alternates between two narrator.

As I was about to sink my teeth into Night of the Living Rez, a series of short stories by a Native American set in Maine, I was expecting George A. Romero, meets Stephen Graham Jones, meets Stephen King. Needless to say, my expectations were set high. I did not get what I expected, I got so much more!

Night of the Living Rez is a collection of short stories that encapsulate small sections of a young man’s life growing up in a Native community. We are bounced around through David’s life – we see the child he was and the man he became.

Talty has put together an exceptional collection of stories. I was able to live vicariously through David; to get a feel for the challenges of growing up in a marginalized community. I can’t imagine that everything that happened to David actually happened to one person, but I am convinced that they all happened to someone in the community; the nitty-gritty details were so vivid and exact.

David is a product of generations pushed to the side: the forgotten, ignored, and misunderstood. Just like in a horror story, I found myself saying, “No! Don’t do it. Something bad will happen!” And just like any horror story, David makes some bad decisions. But we wouldn’t have any good books without bad decisions.

Night of the Living Rez is a book that makes you think. Talty covers so many topics. It was a book that made me want to talk. It was a story that made me sad. But most importantly, it is a story that makes me mad. We can do better than this!

*5 Stars

Night of the Living Rez is a remarkable work of fiction, a set of a dozen short stories that can be read as a novel moving back and forth in time. Night of the Living Rez is set on Penobscot territory in Maine. The novel has a single narrator, David, but his age ranges widely across the stories, from a young boy to an elderly man reflecting on the past. In other stories he's in his late teens or late twenties. David's narrative voice is powerful and holds this collection together every bit as much as the interconnected plot elements within it. Night of the Living Rez if the kind of fiction that compels oxymorons: it's beautiful in its brutality; strangely gentle in its unflinching honesty; simultaneously bleak and loving. The stories embrace despair while also celebrating survival. Night of the Living Rez is a debut work that promises exceptional work to come. Read this book, then keep an eye out for Morgan Talty's next undertaking.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher for review purposes; the opinions are my own.

The synopsis of this book had me hooked but unfortunately the book itself proved to be a huge disappointment. The writing style was chaotic and very difficult to follow.

5 stars

This is one of the most engaging short story collections I've read in a long time, and I expect that both fans of the genre and those who find it a bit more challenging will all be surprised by how much they enjoy this.

Talty's identities make him a compelling vehicle for the 12 stories he packages here and the characters he creates and follows for the long-term. The extended family and community experience both everyday events and intense traumas at a variety of life stages, and they reveal an array of emotions to match. Indigenous voices are frequently silenced in literature, but they come through clearly here in many forms.

I will be enthusiastically looking for ways to incorporate these pieces into my curriculum and keeping an eye out for what Talty produces next. What a debut!

5 stars!

A book of interconnected short stories featuring David, a Penobscot member and different times during his life.

When I am not reading short stories I don’t think about them much to be honest but then I read something as stunning as this set and I remember that I actually do love short stories. For me, having them be interconnected often enhances the experience as well.

This is a debut collection by indigenous author Morgan Talty. Many of the pieces have been featured in various publications and all of them share a humanity and heartfelt moments. Talty writes about difficult subjects and of a hard life. Sprinkled among the burdens are occasions of love and humour.

The opening story ‘Burn,’ tells the story of David coming across his friend Fellis lying in a swamp with his hair frozen to the ground. Fellis, as a character, comes up in many stories and the pair are bonded over their addiction. Other stories tell stories of his mother, sister, grandmother, father and mother’s boyfriend. Many topics are tackled including trauma, love, community, friendship, discrimination, tradition, mental health and substance use and abuse. ‘In a Field of Stray Caterpillars’ had me laughing and gagging and ‘The Name Means Thunder’ had me crying.

Thank you to @netgalley and @tin_house for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Night of the Living Rez publishes July 5, 2022.

This book was difficult to review. I love reading stories about Native life and culture—especially when written by an Own Voices author. But I couldn’t connect with any of the characters in this story. While the stories and writing weren’t bad, I wasn’t sucked in or invested in the stories and found my attention drifting.

I appreciated reading about Native ways and liked that the short stories were intertwined, but ultimately this book was just not for me. I’d still seek out future works by the author as I did enjoy the glimpses at Native life.

I’m in the minority with this review, but I encourage you to read other, more favorable reviews.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This is a 3.5-star read rounded up. What stands out with this story is the attention to theme and the non-linear storytelling. Native storytelling usually doesn’t move in a linear motion, but even still this one was unique and definitely stands out. The story is given to us in fragments, starting with Dee when he is very young, then bouncing around to different points in his life, often switching from younger years to older years and back. Without revealing too much specifically, we see his encounters with family members and friends, his life on the rez, and his struggles with a variety of drugs and alcohol. It makes this a real page-turner because you want to see where the story is going. You have to rely on the theme and tone to really understand the story as the pieces come together. It is dark, heavy, muddy, and raw. We come to know Dee and his life and circumstances from the bare bones of the story and its theme, which I found really entertaining and intriguing.

My only complaint is that it is a little too much. It is thoroughly interesting to keep going but when we get to the final chapters, it all led up to something that I had not expected or anticipated, and not in an “oh wow I didn’t think of that” but in a “there wasn’t information that hinted at this at all.” The circumstances of the family dynamic make sense, but the actual plot did not seem to mesh for me. It felt like trying to cram a jagged puzzle piece in where it didn’t seem to fit. I think I would have liked it more if there was a hint or two into where it was going earlier in the book. Then again, that could have just been beyond me.

Although I want to rave about this book because I did enjoy it, I was thoroughly disappointed with the repetitive fat-shaming and the use of the r slur. I get that these characters are really vulgar, and fully fleshed out in their personalities, but I already had a sense of who they are and what their lives are like before the other aspects come into play. I think this book could have held up on their own without it. In one way, I felt really seen as a native woman reading this native book but then felt as if this author would disrespect me for being overweight. As a debut author as well, it just makes me hesitant to support him because I don’t know his character. I just think it hinders the book more than helps it because it personally broke me out of the story.

Despite those aspects, this is an impressive novel and breaks the mold of storytelling.