Description
2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FICTION FINALIST
WINNER OF THE 2018 READING THE WEST BOOK AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
NPR'S CODE SWITCH BEST BOOK OF 2018
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF 2018
A SOUTHERN REVIEW BEST BOOK OF 2018
Set in rural Oklahoma during the late 1980s, Where the Dead Sit Talking is a startling, authentically voiced and lyrically written Native American coming-of-age story.
With his single mother in jail, Sequoyah, a fifteen-year-old Cherokee boy, is placed in foster care. Literally and figuratively scarred by his mother’s years of substance abuse, Sequoyah keeps mostly to himself, living with his emotions pressed deep below the surface. At least until he meets seventeen-year-old Rosemary, a troubled artist who also lives with the family.
Sequoyah and Rosemary bond over their shared Native American background and tumultuous paths through the foster care system, but as Sequoyah’s feelings toward Rosemary deepen, the precariousness of their lives and the scars of their pasts threaten to undo them both.
WINNER OF THE 2018 READING THE WEST BOOK AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
NPR'S CODE SWITCH BEST BOOK OF 2018
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF 2018
A SOUTHERN REVIEW BEST BOOK OF 2018
Set in rural Oklahoma during the late 1980s, Where the Dead Sit Talking is a startling, authentically voiced and lyrically written Native American coming-of-age story.
With his single mother in jail, Sequoyah, a fifteen-year-old Cherokee boy, is placed in foster care. Literally and figuratively scarred by his mother’s years of substance abuse, Sequoyah keeps mostly to himself, living with his emotions pressed deep below the surface. At least until he meets seventeen-year-old Rosemary, a troubled artist who also lives with the family.
Sequoyah and Rosemary bond over their shared Native American background and tumultuous paths through the foster care system, but as Sequoyah’s feelings toward Rosemary deepen, the precariousness of their lives and the scars of their pasts threaten to undo them both.