While the publisher lists this book in the Adult General Fiction/Literary categories, I found this debut novel to have a profoundly spiritual foundation. Not an in-your-face religious tone, but one that explores what happens when an individual loses their connection to their soul through life choices that lead to the rejection or loss of one’s roots.

Abe Jacobs, the protagonist, is one such individual. He is Kanien’keha:ka from Ahkwesahsne…. or in the colonized version, a Mohawk Indian from the St Regis tribe on the New York State/Canadian border. Having left home at age 18 for college, Abe never looked back and eventually found himself at age 43 in Miami passing for white, failing as a poet, and in a troubled marriage. It takes a mysterious and presumably fatal medical diagnosis to prompt him to return to the Rez. Guided by his Great Uncle Budge, an irreverent healer, Abe begins a personal and collective healing journey that reveals the intergenerational trauma all Indigenous people have suffered in the name of “civilization.”

This book is simultaneously full of wit and heartbreak. Narrated by Dominick Deer Woods, Abe’s internal muse, the author weaves a story that is highly evocative emotionally as it moves through different periods and reveals the horrific treatment perpetrated by white people – past and present. I was deeply touched by Abe’s story and his redemption as he reclaims his authentic voice and his place in the world. I highly recommend this book.

My thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the privilege of reviewing this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This review is being posted immediately to my GoodReads account and will be posted on Amazon upon publication.

Thanks to Zando | Hillman Grad Books and NetGalley for the chance to read Aaron John Curtis' 'Old School Indian' early.

Wow. Stunning.

This is a story of a mid-40s Ahkwesáhsne man - "or, if you ask a white dude, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe" ;) - diagnosed with an extremely rare and proclaimed fatal condition who returns to the reservation on the US/Canadian border and reconnects with everything and everyone he'd largely left behind when he departed to attend university in Syracuse as an 18-year-old.

This is an equally hilarious and heartbreaking story. Only through the physical pain of his condition and the emotional pain of the breakup of his marriage as well as the intergenerational trauma of the indigenous experience is he able to begin to reconnect and through the use of language (Native and English) the author just nails the humanity of it all. The history of abuse and attempted genocide resulting in the multigenerational trauma of the indigenous people across North America is threaded throughout the narrative with, again, much of it laced with this biting humor.

We easily bounce back-and-forth between different time periods as we uncover the story of how Abe ends up where he currently finds himself both geographically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.

As a first novel this is astonishingly good and deserves to be a huge commercial and critical success. Congratulations to Aaron John Curtis and the publisher.

What a special book! It introducing us to the Ahkwesáhsne community by telling its violent colonisation past, exploring the many generational trauma's resulting from this violent past, but it make us also discover throughout this beautiful story their culture, humour, food, some of their healing process and language (we even get a short class on how to pronounce an Ahkwesáhsne word). It's confronting us with our stereotypes on Indigenous peoples in a thoughts provocative yet funny and accessible way. A must-read for every person interested in learning more about one of those communities in order to work towards ending the inequalities they are suffering for too long. This book will stay with me for a long time, that I know already. Thank you Zando for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This was everything that was promised in the description, I was so invested in what was going on and how the characters worked in this story. It had that historical element that I wanted and felt for the characters in this story. Aaron John Curtis has a great writing style that worked overall in this world.

"Old School Indian" by Aaron John Curtis is an absolutely remarkable debut novel that shattered and rebuilt me.

The story follows Abe, a man in his forties from Ahkwesáhsne (known as Mohawk in colonizer terms), who returns to his family’s home after living in Miami for a couple of decades.

Abe feels lost; his marriage is coming to an end, and he is grappling with a debilitating, degenerative, and fatal illness. After spending years passing for white in Miami, he is a go-with-the-flow kind of person, despite his concerns about the direction of his life. He feels disconnected and directionless and has unresolved issues.

Back on the Rez, Abe reluctantly reconnects with his family, friends, and his Great Uncle Budge, a healer. His illness creates lesions, which made me recall those during the AIDS crisis, another group of marginalized people left to die. It also threatens to affect his memory. This erasure parallels the loss of his people's culture and language. He is disappearing like the Ahkwesáhsne.

The novel is rich in culture and history, exploring themes of emotional pain, love, and joy. It delves into identity, survival, and the struggle against cultural erasure. Curtis skillfully presents a witty historical perspective while balancing a narrative that offers hope for the future, emphasizing the importance of self-worth and the value of one’s identity. The story is both heartbreaking and hopeful, leaving the reader with much to think about.

I wholeheartedly recommend this novel; it is one of the best I have read this year. I want to thank NetGalley and Zando for the ARC. I will be purchasing this book and recommending it to everyone!