The Only Good Indians

by Stephen Graham Jones

[pamela]

The Only Good Indians was a great novella, and instead of quitting while he was ahead, Stephen Graham Jones just kept on writing, making what could have been an interesting, thought-provoking horror work into a book that was harder work than any 300-page novel had any right to be.

I found it incredibly difficult to connect with this book, which was a shame, because it was brimming with potential. Explanation was abandoned in favour of repetition, and the developed characters were discarded halfway through in favour of a second act that just dragged and added very little to the narrative. Add to that a long, drawn-out basketball scene that goes on for pages and pages and added absolutely nothing to the story and you've got a book that just didn't quite hit.

Where The Only Good Indians shines is in its representation and analysis of Native American culture. Each of the characters has a different and personal relationship with it, and that is what I wanted to see more of. The folk-horror elements of the novel were the best parts - the folk stories of our heritage are often the hardest to shake and make peace with. And while I acknowledge it's entirely a personal taste, I would have preferred more emphasis on the cultural elements and personal stories rather than the grizzly, gory details of animal death and brutality. That brutality served a purpose, especially in the descriptions of the elk, but I found the parts about dog torture incredibly difficult to get through, and it kind of ruined the reading experience for me a bit. At its heart, I think The Only Good Indians was literary, so when it fell on tired horror gore tropes I found it rather jarring.

Overall, The Only Good Indians just didn't connect with me. It wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't an enjoyable one. The best parts of it were spoiled by a meandering plot and poor characterisation when there was potential for it to be so much more.