Brandon Hobson

Steeped in Cherokee myths and history, a novel about a fractured family reckoning with the tragic death of their son long ago—from National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson.

In the fifteen years since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting, the Echota family has been suspended in private grief. The mother, Maria, increasingly struggles to manage the onset of Alzheimer’s in her husband, Ernest. Their adult daughter, Sonja, leads a life of solitude, punctuated only by spells of dizzying romantic obsession. And their son, Edgar, fled home long ago, turning to drugs to mute his feelings of alienation.

With the family’s annual bonfire approaching—an occasion marking both the Cherokee National Holiday and Ray-Ray’s death, and a rare moment in which they openly talk about his memory—Maria attempts to call the family together from their physical and emotional distances once more. But as the bonfire draws near, each of them feels a strange blurring of the boundary between normal life and the spirit world. Maria and Ernest take in a foster child who seems to almost miraculously keep Ernest’s mental fog at bay. Sonja becomes dangerously fixated on a man named Vin, despite—or perhaps because of—his ties to tragedy in her lifetime and lifetimes before. And in the wake of a suicide attempt, Edgar finds himself in the mysterious Darkening Land: a place between the living and the dead, where old atrocities echo.

Drawing deeply on Cherokee folklore, The Removed seamlessly blends the real and spiritual to excavate the deep reverberations of trauma—a meditation on family, grief, home, and the power of stories on both a personal and ancestral level.

Reviews
“Brandon Hobson has given us a haunted work, full of voices old and new. It is about a family’s reckoning with loss and injustice, and it is about a people trying for the same. The journey of this family’s way home is full—in equal measure—of melancholy and love. The Removed is spirited, droll, and as quietly devastating as rain lifting from earth to sky.”—Tommy Orange, author of There There

"Hobson is a master storyteller and illustrates in gently poetic prose how for many Native Americans the line between this world and the next isn’t so sharp. This will stay long in readers’ minds."— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Mesmerizing…. Spare, strange, bird-haunted, and mediated by grief, the novel defies its own bleakness as its calls forth a delicate and monumental endurance.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A multilayered, emotionally radiant second novel…. Hobson uses Cherokee tradition and the Echotas’ story to amplify each other, blending past and present in a narrative of blistering loss and final healing. Highly recommended.”— Library Journal (starred review)

"With elegiac grace, The Removed tells of one family’s struggles to find wholeness after tragedy."— Booklist

“There are many stories in The Removed, a mystical, deep, and compassionate novel that explores how the intimate lives of a family are shaped by powerful ancestral legacies. The traumas of the past, both personal and historical, are forever with us, but—and here is the miraculous heart of this novel—people can still abide, resist, and even recover. Every character in The Removed seems to contain an intricate, particular, fully realized world. A quietly dazzling and haunting achievement.”— Dana Spiotta, author of Eat the Document

“Astonishing. This moving and affecting novel tells the story of a Native family in crisis, each person dealing with the aftereffects of grief and trauma following the murder of a beloved son. But this is a book of hope and healing, a remarkable tale of resilience in the face of unimaginable pain. Written with lyrical and evocative prose and a deep reverence for Cherokee culture and tradition, The Removed is an important contribution to indigenous fiction and American literature.”— David Heska Wanbli Weiden, author of Winter Counts

Additional Information
288 pages | 5.31" x 8.00" | Paperback

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 with the Troutt family. 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.

Awards

• A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018
• 2019 In the Margins Book Award Top Fiction Novel

Reviews
"An extraordinary book." —NPR's Code Switch

"A strange and powerful Native American Bildungsroman . . . this novel breathes with a dark, pulsing life of its own." —The Tulsa Voice

" This is a dark story that depicts the loneliness and pain of unwanted children and the foster care system where they end up . . . authentic and humane. " — The Oklahoman

"A powerful testament to one young Native American’s will to survive his lonely existence. Sequoyah’s community and experience is one we all need to know, and Hobson delivers the young man’s story in a deeply profound narrative." —KMUW Wichita Public Radio

"I was really struck by the intelligence of the book, as well as the significance of the story that he's telling, about what it's like to be a modern Indigenous person in this country, as a Native American, and to be in the foster care system. I was very struck by the plot of it—it's very well written, it's very propulsive, it's very readable for literary fiction, and I would recommend it heartily to book clubs." —Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko

"Dreamlike prose . . . Where the Dead Sit Talking is an exploration of whether it’s possible for a person to heal when all the world sees is a battlefield of scars. " — San Diego CityBeat

"The latest from Hobson is a smart, dark novel of adolescence, death, and rural secrets set in late-1980s Oklahoma. Hobson’s narrative control is stunning, carrying the reader through scenes and timelines with verbal grace and sparse detail. Far more than a mere coming-of-age story, this is a remarkable and moving novel ." — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"A masterly tale of life and death, hopes and fears, secrets and lies." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"Hobson's eloquent prose and storyline will keep literary and general fiction readers turning pages. Its teen protagonists offer interest for young adults." —Library Journal

"[A] poignant and disturbing coming-of-age story . . . Hobson presents a painfully visceral drama about the overlooked lives of those struggling on the periphery of mainstream society." —Booklist

"Where the Dead Sit Talking is a sensitive and searching exploration of a youth forged in turbulence, in the endless aftermath of displacement and loss. Sequoyah’s voice is powerfully singular—both wounded and wounding—and this novel is a thrilling confirmation of Brandon Hobson’s immense gifts on the page.” —Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me

Additional Information
5.50" x 8.25"

From National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson, a kaleidoscopic middle-grade adventure that mixes the anxieties, friendships, and wonders of a Cherokee boy's life with Cherokee history and lore.

Ziggy has ANXIETY. Partly this is because of the way his mind works, and how overwhelmed he can get when other people (especially his classmate Alice) are in the room. And partly it's because his mother disappeared when he was very young, making her one of many Native women who've gone mysteriously missing. Ziggy and his sister, Moon, want answers, but nobody around can give them.

Once Ziggy gets it in his head that clues to his mother's disappearance may be found in a nearby cave, there's no stopping him from going there. Along with Moon, Alice, and his best friend, Corso, he sets out on a mind-bending adventure where he'll discover his story is tied to all the stories of the Cherokees that have come before him.

Ziggy might not have any control over the past -- but if he learns the lessons of the storytellers, he might be able to better shape his future and find the friends he needs.

Reviews
"The Storyteller is an all-night adventure between four kids, and it's a journey they will never forget. Hobson's middle-grade debut is thoughtful, moving, and even humorous at times, while also challenging colonial history and bringing awareness to MMIW, Missing Murdered Indigenous Women." - Andrew, Goodreads Review 

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 9 to 12.

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.50" x 8.25" | Hardcover