★ 12/18/2023

Taffa, the director of the MFA creative writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, debuts with a poignant and harrowing account of growing up in the 1980s as a “Native girl in a northwestern New Mexico town where cowboys still hated Indians.” In vivid, nonlinear passages, Taffa describes her childhood, focusing especially on her complex relationships with her parents, who were raised on reservations and had aspirations of assimilation for Taffa and her siblings. Taffa’s father, Edmond Jackson, was often in trouble with the law, most notably after his involvement in a fatal car accident; her mother, Lorraine Lopez Herrera, had such all-consuming depression that Taffa feared being home alone with her. Neither parent explored the history of Native American oppression in-depth with Taffa, who researched that history on her own as an adolescent and began to sour on the American Dream she’d grown up idealizing. Throughout, she’s careful not to depict her circumstances as unique: “My story is as common as dirt,” she writes. “Thousands of Native Americans in California, Arizona, and New Mexico could tell it.” What makes Taffa’s version exceptional is her visceral prose and sharp attunement to the tragedies of assimilation. This is a must-read. Agent: Samantha Shea, Georges Borchardt. (Feb.)

An Oprah Daily "Best New Book" and "Riveting Nonfiction and Memoir You Need to Read" * A New York Times "New Book to Read" * An Esquire "Best Nonfiction Book (So Far)" * A Washington Post "Book to read this summer" * An Elle "Best Book" * A Zibby Mag "Most Anticipated Book" * A San Francisco Chronicle "New Book to Cozy Up With" * The Millions "Most Anticipated" * An Electric Lit “Books By Women of Color to Read" * An Amazon Editors "Best Book of the Month" *An Esquire "Best Book (so far)" * Publishers Weekly "Top 10 Memoir and Biography" —

"(A) vibrant memoir" — New Yorker

"Indeed, while some reviewers have already qualified her book as a “Native memoir,” Taffa’s story is in fact distinctly American, full stop, and one that a country afraid of its own history needs to hear." — Washington Post

"I was completely taken by Whiskey Tender: its gorgeous sentences, its searing observations about identity and loss and inheritance, and its exploration of generational and terrestrial traumas. This is a strong and special book."  — Carmen Maria Machado, bestselling author of In the Dream House

"What makes Taffa’s version exceptional is her visceral prose and sharp attunement to the tragedies of assimilation. This is a must-read." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“We have more Native stories now, but we have not heard one like this. Whiskey Tender is unexpected and propulsive, indeed tender, but also bold, and beautifully told, like a drink you didn’t know you were thirsty for. This book, never anything less than mesmerizing, is full of family stories and vital Native history. It pulses and it aches, and it lifts, consistently. It threads together so much truth by the time we are done, what has been woven together equals a kind of completeness from brokenness, and a hope from knowing love and loss and love again by naming it so.”  — Tommy Orange, National Bestselling Author of There There 

"The result of a lifetime, Taffa's remarkable debut stands out from other contemporary memoirs and Native American literature." — Booklist (starred review)

"A warm and propulsive personal history that lucidly traces its Native and colonial legacies to draw a complex and humane portrait of a family and a pivotal political time in U.S. history. Taffa is a gifted raconteur and her memoir should be required reading for everyone in this country."  — Melissa Febos, author of Body Work and Girlhood, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

"A riveting, intricately layered exploration of family, belonging, trauma, and survival—an instant classic" — Nicole Chung for Esquire

"Deborah Taffa’s Whiskey Tender is utterly gripping, deeply moving, and absolutely true to its title: saturated with the kind of tenderness made possible by close attention and deep compassion. This memoir is an endlessly revelatory saga of growing up and growing into history, an ode to family and reclamation, an honoring of heritage and tradition that holds centuries of history while also holding close the searing particulars of daily life: jokes, night terrors, whispered confessions. Taffa never shies away from pain, or from the complexities of family, but her story always insists on joy, and explores with such lucidity the endless transformations, innovations, and acts of creation that survival requires. Taffa’s Laguna grandmother said three things were necessary for a deep intimacy with homeland—sensory experiences, storied histories, and deep caring—and all three strands are so abundantly, ecstatically, present in this stunning saga of inheritance and reckoning." — Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Recovering and The Empathy Exams

 "A coming-of-age story that tackles nothing less than the birth of the nation." — Oprah.com

"Deborah Taffa's Whiskey Tender is an intricately-layered and emotional glimpse into family, discovery, and home. This memoir is both heartbreaking and beautiful and will leave you thinking about it long after finishing it. A remarkable book." — Brandon Hobson, National Book Award finalist and author of The Removed

"Taffa’s is a story of immense and reverent heart, told with precise and pure skill.”  — Elle

"In a memoir populated by dreams but legislated by family and culture and reality, Deborah Taffa suggests that if we are going to heal we need to be able to remember our wounds. In a style that is by turns measured, then biting, then humorous, then humble, then soaring, Taffa has a personal and moral conversation with an untold history. This story—which centers around being both Native and American at the same time—is a great lesson for how we can hold, and even embrace, our divisions and our tensions to create a new mosaic for the future." — Colum McCann, National Book Award winner and author of Apeirogon

 "Rich and wise" — Los Angeles Times

"This book is about inheritance, but it is also about reclamation. It's about the history we can't change and those futures that we're shaping despite their pings from the past. And in her graceful, compassionate, bold, and humorous debut, Taffa explores how to navigate this rift with insights of breathtaking beauty and depth."  —  John D’Agata, Guggenheim Fellow and Author of The Lifespan of a Fact 

"Taffa’s work is a testament to the power of and need for intergenerational storytelling and a reminder that neither the history, identity, nor future of Native Americans is a monolith. She succeeds in creating a memorable celebration of 'our survival as a culture, as well as the hope, strength, and grace of my family.' A searching and perceptive Native memoir." — Kirkus Reviews

"A single life can be the wellspring for an entire mythology, and Deborah Jackson Taffa's Whiskey Tender flows like water over desert earth. We are given the life of a people, their history borne of and defining American history. We are given a story, singular and impossible to put down" — Jai Chakrabarti, author of A Play for the End of the World and A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness

"The many strands of narrative coalesce to form a visceral story of family, survival, and belonging, flooding the field with cleansing light." — Esquire

"A memoir of exquisite detail and honesty, Whiskey Tender is a quintessentially American story in which Little Debbie snackcakes and The Price is Right are every bit the birthrights of Deborah Taffa as the legacies of Indigenous displacement, oppression and murder. Taffa's moving book reminds us that capital-H history never ends with travesties but carries through specific individuals in real time, and that while America can take and take, it can never kill off the truth or the spirit."  — Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End

"In Whiskey Tender, Deborah Taffa examines, courageously and compellingly, the many forces that made her. Her extraordinary, hard-working father; her complicated, beautiful mother; a childhood divided between Quechuan and Navajo territories; and her own bullheaded, indomitable spirit. A deft and engaging weave of personal narrative, generational trauma, US policies of exclusion and erasure, and Taffa’s unquenchable desire to find her way back to the mystery that always has been and is still at the center of existence, this superb memoir of place, culture and finding power will open your eyes as well as your heart." — Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek, Finding Hope In The High Country

“Screaming from the heart, Taffa's confiding memoir pierces generations of colonial harm. A mature, illuminating text that will also appeal to coming-of-age readers."  — Cynthia Leitich Smith, American Indian Youth Literature Award winner for Hearts Unbroken 

"In this finely drawn memoir, Deborah Jackson Taffa has written an essential story of America. A meticulously researched and critical look at self and country, Whiskey Tender breaks your heart and then makes it soar." — Kelli Jo Ford, author of Crooked Hallelujah

"Taffa’s nuanced, compassionate descriptions of her attempts to overcome bullying at school or her family’s struggles after trading the connection and support they enjoyed in Yuma for a modicum of upward mobility in Farmington are engrossing." — San Francisco Chronicle

"Whiskey Tender is a gem that is both a deeply personal story, but also sheds a light on the injustices faced by Indigenous people past and present. It is a must read." — Durango Herald

"In Deborah Jackson Taffa's memoir, transparency is laced with humor and heart"
— Santa Fe New Mexican

2024-02-13
A woman with both Native American and Spanish bloodlines seeks to understand the identities at her core.

Taffa, a member of the Yuma Nation and Laguna Pueblo, is the editor-in-chief of River Styx magazine and director of the MFA creative writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Like many Native people, she and her family have faced a concerted effort to remove them from the land, customs, and culture that are their inheritance. In the 1970s, the author’s parents made a pointed, if tortured, decision to leave their Quechan family to pursue economic security and some level of assimilation for their children. Spending her childhood and adolescence on the precipice of risk, experiencing anger, resentment, and grief both personal and systemic, Taffa established her claim to her mixed-tribe Native identity. While she asserts that her story is, in ways, as “common as dirt,” her narration is both illuminating and instructive. With Native blood and roots that reach to the Spanish conquistadors, the author’s experience exposes little-known aspects of the Spanish-Indigenous relationship and the complex nature of intertribal competition and collaboration. She carefully incorporates years of diligent research to reveal unknown or underappreciated facts of history—such as the responses of Native Americans during World War II—highlighting the intricacies of both her family history and the more summarily acknowledged mistreatment of Indigenous groups. Amid such details, the emotional power and cohesion of the author’s own narrative can get lost, but Taffa’s work is a testament to the power of and need for intergenerational storytelling and a reminder that neither the history, identity, nor future of Native Americans is a monolith. She succeeds in creating a memorable celebration of “our survival as a culture, as well as the hope, strength, and grace of my family.”

A searching and perceptive Native memoir.