Stick Houses is a short story collection focused on the Native American perspective, and more specifically the Anishnaabe world. Most of it is realistic fiction, but some of it is more dystopian science fiction. There's a refugee who's been living in an airport for a decade, feuding fast food gangs, adoption stories, and the end of the world. I liked that so much of it was set in Michigan; it was close to home and so familiar. They're pretty well-written stories.

The problem with researching and wanting to document history is if the people doing it are biased and want to preserve what they think versus giving a voice to the ones they are documenting.

This book comes as an answer to that issue. As researchers debated with the author's mom about their living in teepees, "Stick Houses" was born to show the identities and stories of the Anishinaabe people and the way they live. It's above stereotypes you might hear about Native American people, and it's as modern as culturally infused, both happy and sad, both leaning on the traditions and how they were lost, as complex as life and people are.

Some stories were more to my preference than others, as I think it happens in every short story book, but overall, it was a good read.

“Stick Houses” is a collection of short stories with some falling in fiction, some in speculative fiction, but all of them based on the reality of Anishinaabe people on their traditional homelands, based in the current state of Michigan. Collections like these can be great reminders, or examples, of the diversity of experiences and identity expression and recognition that exist in Indian Country. It’s a reminder that we need all of the stories, not just the ones we know to look for or anticipate.

By the end of this collection, I felt like I knew a little more about an Anisinaabe experience than I did before.

Tokša aké, bookfriends

Pidamaya Matthew Fletcher for sharing these stories, and Michigan State University Press and NetGalley for the eARC.

This is a collection of short stories that offer glimpses of the complexities of contemporary Native American life and Anishinaabe culture--there are both realistic and speculative stories, all of them heading in unexpected directions. The stories build slowly until you're finding yourself in an entirely different place than you expected to be. Some examples include a father searches for a daughter who was adopted out, whose existence he didn't know of at the time; long-term friends and high school rivals play their last regular season baseball game, amidst racism and competing loyalties; multiple stories address what Indian law involves (or might involve in a speculative future), and even more stories struggle with a way to move forward, with self-respect and justice and a connection to one's culture and community. It's an interesting, varied collection.

Thanks to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for access to my free earc in return for an unbiased review. My opinions are all my own.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. The short stories in this book were interesting and a glimpse into Anishinabe culture.

This did not flow well. The stories seemed disconnected and some were long and seemed meaningless. They didn’t truly come together in the end for me (collectively).

I like this Arthur how he talked about. He native Americans in Michigan and the stories how they came about is very interesting. Each story had a MORAL. E! Explained what happened to them and how they adjusted going on. I like the story about the father, who was looking for his Native American daughter because the family broke them up. He loved this woman so much but he did not know she was pregnant with this child until many years later. You wanted to find out what happened to her?Because she was put up for adoption to a non native american. You will find out how this.Has a happy ending. The one about the boarding school too was very interesting because it took away their culture and how they had to regain it back. They talked about Seattle as well.We have a tr Native americans called the j DU WAN ISH. Who are not recognized by the United States government. All these stories have different endings to them but they're great

Not what I expected🤔

2.5 rounded to 3 🌟 stars
I thought Stick Houses would be more obviously about the Native American experience. But as I read I found a collection of unconnected, seemingly random stories about contemporary life that just could not hold my interest. The baseball tale buried any cultural point in the mechanics of the team rivalries and the game. The story about an Iranian stuck in Charles de Gaulle airport for years just dragged on pretty uneventfully and ended on a flat note. There seemed no logical transition between stories and I could not see a connecting thought thread.

Thanks to State University of Michigan Press and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

Short stories of life as an Anishinaabeg Native American Isolation, abuse, cultural identity,discrimination and
unequal treatment are some of the subjects covered. An interesting assortment.
#StickHouses #MichiganStateUniversityPress #NetGalley

Matthew L.M. Fletcher’s “Stick Houses: Stories” is a collection of short stories, many of them flash fiction, broadly focused on what it’s like to be an Anishhinaabeg Native American from Michigan. These stories span a range of genres and styles, and many of them focus on themes like family, estrangement, isolation, identity, struggle, and reunion. As a whole, this collection is highly eclectic and asks for readers who are fairly skilled in reading literature.

Curiously, while I can recognize the tremendous skill that went into writing the stories contained in this book, I didn’t particularly like reading it. Fletcher demonstrates a lot of range as a writer; his stories take us into realism, absurdism, literary fiction, and science fiction, as we encounter tones ranging from humor to sadness and fear and prose styles that vary from minimalist to more ornate and literary. The skilled characterization also meant that even in the shortest pieces the characters felt like unique, three-dimensional, imperfect people. I particularly felt connected to the characters Violet and Sarah from “Sarah’s Sister” a story about two sisters who find each other after being estranged by Child Protective Services and the adoption system.

That being said, I’m not sure why it wasn’t the book for me. I think, perhaps, based on the title and introduction, I expected all of the stories to be obviously about the experience of being Native American. After all, the introduction did say, “These stories are all fictional, sometimes bordering on science fiction or fantasy, but much of what goes on in this collection happened to me or someone I know,” which didn’t prepare me for an absurdist (I think) fable featuring a character called simply “the Iranian.” To be fair, though, “An Iranian in de Gaulle” was one of my favorites, and could be interpreted as being about being stuck between places or cultures, which I imagine describes some Native American people’s experiences. I probably would have also preferred many of the stories if they had been longer and, thus, had had more time to develop their premises. That might just mean, though, that the book and I were a mismatch.

I mean in no way to discourage others from reading this book. Certainly read it if it interests you, but also know that it might not be what you’re expecting if you’ve read the description.

TW: Racial slurs, r slur, f slur, physical violence, sexual harassment, brief description of CSA, bullying, gun violence, murder, suicide, adoption, family separation, child abuse, fatphobia

'Stick Houses' is an interesting collection of stories, tracing the various experiences of Ashinaabe people (indigenous tribes) in Michigan, who have found different ways to make sense of their cultural and personal displacement. Some of the stories are set in the US in a speculative future and others appear to be rooted in the late 20th C/early 21st Century.

This collection is hit and miss for me. Although I really enjoyed quite a few stories, and found the premise of every story interesting, some of them felt underdeveloped, more like the beginning of something, or a backstory rather than a complete narrative. I think some of the stories would work better as part of a novel where these characters' personal narratives are interweaved.

My favourite stories were the quirky or speculative stories: 'An Iranian in de Gaulle' (a man who can't leave an airport), 'House by the Sea' (the arrival of a hostile tribe), 'The Chain Gangs' (warring gangs -- I won't give away the twist) and 'The Sons of Leopold' (set in a dystopian world where cultural appropriation is taken to the extreme) In fact, I think 'The Sons of Leopold' would make a good novella. These stories seemed to breathe a little more, had the most context and seemed to say something about the ways in which large groups displace smaller groups.

I also liked the stories which focused on the difficulty of fractured families and friendship groups reuniting, such as, 'Truck Stop', 'Ten-year Visit' and 'Sarah's Sister'. I appreciated the references to the part the United States government played in the displacement of the Ashinaabe people and the splitting of families, and the honest portrayal of how the Ashinaabe characters did or didn't overcome what had been done to them.

*Due to the layout of this early eArc, stories ran into each other. Without titles or paragraph separation, I read three stories in a row thinking it was one story with slight narrative shifts. This highlighted to me that some of the characters seem like the same people and aren't distinctive enough (one character appeared in two stories, so maybe more characters crossed stories and I missed something).

Overall, I liked the nature of the stories, and Fletcher's writing style, but I needed more. I would read a longer work by this author, though.

Thank you to netgalley and Michigan State University Press for making this eARC available.