”What I am is the Indian who can’t die. I’m the worst dream America ever had.”

Okay, I have been sitting with this sentence and, really, the first 30 (40?) percent of this book and my thoughts about it because I simply cannot wrap my brain around how rage-inducingly, soul-crushingly, brilliant it all is. I've had this book on my TBR for a long time, so I knew the basic strokes of the story: indigenous vampire(s), found footage esque vibe, multi-pov, old timey american west. I NEVER could have guessed that the the true horror was historical, not vampiric, despite the fact that I'm familiar with some of SJG's other novels. (Ridiculous, I know, I just wasn't thinking about it because things have been busy.) Growing up in a state in the Plains, I learned some of the histories and horrors of settler colonialism, but to walk and run and scream alongside Good Stab as he stumbles across the SENSELESS slaughter of the buffalo herd - and their calves, my god - is to engage with these horrors on an entirely new level. They are literally seared into my soul, and I've never been so uncomfortable reading a book in all my life. (It's a good discomfort in a way, it's forcing me to acknowledge atrocities and histories that would be easier to ignore, and I think that everyone in this country should be forced to sit with passages from this book, because I sure as hell didn't learn about this in my typical American history classes, but I digress.)

I know that there are a lot of debates about how accurate Arthur's recordings of Good Stab's stories are - and rightfully so, because I don't trust Arthur as far as I can THROW him - but when I'm reading the gospels according to Good Stab, I genuinely don't hear or think about Arthur at all. I don't hear Arthur's opinion of Good Stab, I hear Good Stab reliving some of the worst experiences of his life. I hear Good Stab struggling with his shame and rage and self-loathing and revenge, and I hear Good Stab trying to honor elements of his past life, like saving that poor little calf. I've been trying to think about why this is cool or noteworthy, especially given the structure of the novel and everyone's awesome commentaries on it, and I think that for me, the most beautiful part of Good Stab's oration is the fact that it cannot be erased, no matter what Arthur does. Even if he changes the language or paints Good Stab as a caricature or a stereotype, personal memories and histories and stories can't be erased. They may not be preserved in the capital H historical record - which is biased and flawed and wholly interpretive anyway - but they exist and survive nonetheless. I think it's a really powerful parallel to the way Arthur continually references the whole "Vanishing Indian" trope, and I'm interested to see how everything shakes out in the other 70 (60?) percent of the book.

I typically fly through books, especially if I'm really hooked on them, but with this one, I truly have to follow Good Stab and Arthur one chapter at a time. I have to sit with the story and how I feel about it, which is a new experience for me, but I just can't bring myself to read quickly. It's simply too important.