Sacred Smokes

Winner of the 2018 Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing from the Working-Class Studies Association
Selected for the Recommended Fiction Book List of the 2019 In the Margins Book Award

Growing up in a gang in the city can be dark. Growing up Native American in a gang in Chicago is a whole different story. This book takes a trip through that unexplored part of Indian Country, an intense journey that is full of surprises, shining a light on the interior lives of people whose intellectual and emotional concerns are often overlooked. This dark, compelling, occasionally inappropriate, and often hilarious linked story collection introduces a character who defies all stereotypes about urban life and Indians. He will be in readers’ heads for a long time to come.