Night of the Living Rez

By Morgan Talty,

Book cover of Night of the Living Rez

Book description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, American Academy of Arts & Letters Sue Kaufman Prize, The New England Book Award, and the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree

A Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction, the Chautauqua…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Night of the Living Rez as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

New voices in Native American fiction are getting noticed, and Morgan Talty’s novel Night of the Living Rez introduced me to characters who are powerfully real, with fresh ways of thinking and expressing themselves.

The community in Maine that Talty writes about comes alive, and I feel for their trials and victories. Talty is a new force in American fiction, and this book will show you why. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Addiction, grief, generational trauma… all these things exist in Talty’s work. But his prose lifts all that heaviness and makes it not only bearable, but often strangely beautiful.

His characters are raw and real, and his skill with dialogue is enviable. I love the way the book is structured as a collection of linked stories, each one informing and contributing to the rest. The book is set on the Penobscot reservation in Maine, an area often overlooked both in literature and reality.

Talty is a natural storyteller, and his voice rings with wisdom, dry humor, and honesty, giving readers rare…

From Shannon's list on capturing the Maine experience.

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