“If I can just save one, Claire.
He won't make up for the rest, no. But if he dies, I fear the added weight of him will tip the rest over and they'll come piling down upon me, such that I can never climb out again and will have instead to drown in what I've done.”
title: Ledfeather
author: Stephen Graham Jones
published: 2008
publisher: Fiction Collective 2
genre/subgenre: historical fiction, but narratively subversive/experimental
setting: Blackfeet Reservation in so-called Montana
main themes/subjects: legacy & inheritance, colonization, historical perspective/realities, consequences of our choices, curses & justice—redemption, soulloss
representation: Blackfeet Natives
tropes: epistolary narrative, re-incarnation?
blurbs: “Stephen Graham Jones’s Ledfeather unfolds like an automobile accident in slow motion. The novel’s moments of drama expand continuously and seamlessly to include the historical past and to prefigure the present. He writes with a compelling sense of omnipresent danger and the fragility of human survival, and the reality he creates is riveting.” — Barry Lopez
summary: “Jones’s beautifully complex novel is a story of life, death, love, and the ties that bind us not only to what has been, but what will be: the power of one moment, the weight of one decision, the inevitability of one outcome, and the price of one life.” — from the back cover
my thoughts:
This was a very quick read for me personally. I feel like I was kind of racing through it because I wanted to keep all the hints & clues & details that I knew were important fresh in my mind so when they popped up again & all my questions were answered I’d be able to recognize them. In the end, did I understand everything that was going on in this book? No. Did that stop me from absolutely lovinggg this book? HELL no. I just know I’ll still be turning this story over in my mind months from now & some realization will hit me out of the blue as I slowly, distantly, begin to piece things together. I can’t *wait* to reread this one… probably this November.
I will say though that I feel like there are some things that certain folks will write about that I just have trouble believing in—like the way Native folks write about their white characters’ colonizer-guilt eating them up inside or like the way women write about men characters who are not all complete cowards when it comes to love. Idk it’s just… I know we’d all like to think those things are possible but… I just don’t buy it. &, in the end, I don’t think Dalimpere was truly consumed by his guilt at what he’d done, but his own realization of what he’d personally lost—i.e. his soul—& as a result lost his ability to truly love & believe in the sanctity of his love for his sweetheart back east, because, now that he’d lost his soul… all the rest was lost too. So I think this personal hang up of mine may have kept me from properly “getting” the ending which is why I will definitely be rereading this one sooner rather than later.
I wish I could speak more eloquently about everything else that blew me away in this book though but I really will wait until after I reread it because I’d probably sound like an idiot if I tried to do it now.
i would recommend this book to readers who love original, extremely literary, erudite historical fiction with a very intense sort of mystery vibe that repays very close attention with an incredibly profound ending. this book is best read… in winter, in Montana.
“The story, too, it was a joke mostly, like all of Earl's stories, was that one time an elk had found a white man lost and dying in the storm, and they'd talked to each other, and finally the elk, because it knew the man needed to live, to be warm, it took pity and laid on its side and let the man cut it open and crawl inside, and stay warm like that even though the snow piled up all around them for days and days and even years, only when the man finally crawled out again, everything was different, because that elk you crawl into, it's not the same one you crawl back out of, right?”
final note: Wait why did I think this was his debut novel…?
CW // suicide, alcoholism, graphic deaths—humans & animals
season: winter
music pairing: the wind in the prairies, a snowstorm in the Park, the calls of elk way off in the distance…
further reading:
“Five of the Best Literary Historical Novels recommended by Paul Carlucci” —I loved what Carlucci says about Ledfeather in this interview.
Trevor’s review of Ledfeather on goodreads was particularly excellent.
Christopher’s review on Fifty Books Project also resonated with me.
I also really appreciated this post by Erica (esotericareads) on bookstagram:
everything else by Stephen Graham Jones—
“Stephen Graham Jones: Where to Begin with the Award-Winning Horror Author,” by Michael J. Seidlinger (Jun 30, 2020)
especially THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS (2019) ★ ★ ★ ★ .75
I’ll probably be reading AFTER THE PEOPLE LIGHTS HAVE GONE OFF (2014 short stories) & BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER (vampire historical horror out March 2025) of his next this year & then I will reread Ledfeather in November…
MAN MADE MONSTERS by Andrea L Rodgers (2022) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
ONE-SENTENCE JOURNAL (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ & DESCENDED FROM A TRAVEL-WORN SATCHEL by Chris La Tray (2021)
PERMA RED by Debra Magpie Earling (2002) ★ ★ ★ ★ .75 —another multi-timeline? multi-POV? & similarly very literary, beautiful, heart-rending, & erudite novel also set in so-called Montana…
MOON OF THE CRUSTED SNOW by Waubgeshig Rice (xx) —another reader comp’ed this book & it’s been on my TBR…
NEVER WHISTLE AT NIGHT edited by Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. (2023) ★ ★ ★ ★ .75
TAAQTUMI: An Arctic Horror Anthology, edited by Neil Christopher (2019) ★ ★ ★ ★ .75
ALSO I kinda got Helen Oyeyemi vibes from this book re: the style & structure so… idk maybe Icarus Girl or White is for Witching could be very (very!) loose comps? kinda?? Oh man I’d gobble an Oyeyemi hist-fic the WHOLE way up tho omg 🤤
Click on the star ratings beside the titles I’ve read to read my reviews/thoughts about the book.
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