JULY 2022 - AudioFile
Darrell Dennis narrates these 12 interconnected short stories with calculated restraint, empathy, and a sure sense of the author’s voice. His gift for timing gives the Native American protagonist a powerful self-consciousness and convincing sense of his people (Maine’s Penobscot tribe) and their place. The central character, David, tells the first-person stories in a warts-and-all-style that is delivered in a convincing tone and careful cadence. The short fictions that comprise this audiobook teeter from funny to sad and have the feel of real experience. This debut collection captures the dark contours of the rez—drugs, drink, petty crime, lack of opportunity. The author has created an isolated and insular world. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 05/30/2022
Talty’s smart and gritty debut, a linked collection, poignantly overlays a boy’s coming-of-age on the Penobscot reservation with a young man’s present-day struggles to overcome opioid addiction and economic precarity, implying that they might be the same person in different phases of life. “In a Jar” introduces young Simpsons-watching David as he copes with an absent mother and her hard-drinking medicine man boyfriend, Frick, who earned his nickname for a habit of saying “fricken this, fricken that.” His older sister, Paige, gets pregnant, stoking their mother’s ire like “Homer on Bart,” and the angry Frick dismisses David for being trigger shy on a hunting trip. Abandoned hunting trips recur throughout, as in “Food for the Common Cold,” about a tragic episode from Frick’s earlier life, and in the interstitial stories following 20-something Dee and his friend Fellis, who talk in “Get Me Some Medicine” about hunting porcupines for money. In “Earth Speak” and “The Name Means Thunder,” Talty reveals more of Dee’s and Paige’s painful histories involving opioids and methadone; the latter story, narrated by a grown-up David, serves both as a standalone meditation on truth-telling and an elegant keystone to the collection. Talty brings an abundance of love and skill to his accounts of troubled lives. The ingenious structure and heartbreaking stories make this unforgettable. Agent: Rebecca Friedman, Rebecca Friedman Literary. (July)
Shelf Awareness
"Joining the ranks of Tommy Orange, Brandon Hobson and Terese Marie Mailhot, Talty's strikingly successful debut is poised to expand the growing circle of lauded Indigenous writers. Superb."
NPR Affiliate WBEZ
"Incendiary."
Downeast Magazine
"Beautiful."
Chicago Reivew of Books
"Woven together with the care and intimacy of a family heirloom."
The Maine Edge
"Exceptional. . . . [Talty] is a tremendously gifted writer, thoughtful and thought-provoking."
Ploughshares
"The best collection I have read all year."
The Wall Street Journal
"Memorable."
Toni Jensen
"Night of the Living Rez delivers stories that combine the otherworldly with the everyday in ways that startle and sing. Morgan Talty portrays Maine and his Penobscot characters in language and images both beautiful and inventive. With equal parts humor and haunting, this book will linger."
She Reads
"A memorable portrait of survival, love and perseverance."
Good Housekeeping
"Searing, devastating and often darkly funny."
Terese Marie Mailhot
"Night of the Living Rez is true storytelling. It's a book so funny, so real, so spirited and vivid it brought me back to my own rez life and the people who made me."
BookPage
"There is so much beauty in these stories. . . . they build on themselves the way a life builds: messily, unpredictably, with love and heartache and never quite in the way you expect."
Esquire
"Astounding. . . . Talty is an important new writer to watch."
Richard Van Camp
"While soaked in pain and broken promises, Night of The Living Rez delivers with a grace and dignity on par with the writings of Craig Lesley, Dawn Dumont, James Welch and Joseph Dandurand. Morgan Talty delivers on so many levels and proves that this is why Indigenous Literature continues to be its own unique and sacred blessing. I loved this book. Loved it. And I can't wait to see what Morgan Talty does next. I am a fan for life. Mahsi cho, Morgan!"
The Adroit Journal
"Devastating and witty."
Booklist
"Remarkable. . . . Clear-eyed and compassionate."
The New York Times
"Remarkable. . . . An electric, captivating voice. . . . Talty has assured himself a spot in the canon of great Native American literature."
High Country News
"As tender as anything you’ll read this year."
Electric Lit - Isaac Fitzgerald
"A masterful debut. . . . filled with grit and has heaps of heart to spare."
NPR Affiliate WBUR
"Compassionate and insightful."
Tommy Orange
"These stories took me in the same way Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son did when I first read it. The comparison here is meant in every way to praise Talty as a writer, and I’m sure I won’t be the only one who says so, partially because of his emotional precision, his stark, unflinching, droll, intoxicating style, and also because of a certain drug/addiction element at play here. But as I got deeper into the work, into the book, and came to understand these lives and this community, the further away it felt from my initial comparison with Johnson, and the more familiar it felt—our Native communities being bound by countless common threads, strengths and afflictions both—and only then did I understand the distinct brilliance of Talty’s voice as its own, and ours. I knew and felt for these people. Wanted to and knew I couldn’t help them, even as they did me. There is so much brutal, raw, and beautiful power in these stories. I kept wanting to read and know more about these peoples’ lives, how they ended up where they ended up, how they would get out, how they wouldn’t. It is difficult to be so honest, and funny, and sad, at once, in any kind of work. Reading this book, I literally laughed and cried."
Laura van den Berg
"Night of the Living Rez is an indelible portrait of a family in crisis, and an incisive exploration of the myriad ways in which the past persists in haunting the present. I loved these sharply atmospheric, daring, and intensely moving stories, each one dense with peril and tenderness. Morgan Talty is a thrilling new talent."
Cosmopolitan
"Gorgeous."
Jim Shepard
"Night of the Living Rez is a fiercely intelligent and beautifully written set of stories—a spectacularly visceral and moving account of the experience of a member of the Penobscot Nation in today’s America—as well as a wrenching meditation on family and familial dysfunction. Morgan Talty is a master of the way dependency and pain transition from one body to another; the way both separating and refusing to separate become modes of saving ourselves; and the way, for all of our failures, we never stop doing what we can to provide each other hope."
Fiction Writers Review
"Demands to be read, then read again."
Oprah Daily
"A blazing new talent."
Boston.com
"Shouldn’t be missed."
Appalachian Mountain Club
"Mixes tales of addiction and sadness with joy and humor."
Lily King
"Magnificent."
Ms. Magazine
"Remarkable."
The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Uses humor and heartache to tell the interconnected stories of a menagerie of Indigenous characters."
Paste
"Talty is sure to delight us with humor and mend our hearts with humanity."
LitHub
"Stunning."
Tribal College Journal
"Unforgettable. . . . rich in both plot and execution, this is a book that reflects how humanity is shaped by both trauma and survival."
Vulture
"Unearths grace amid strife. . . . Talty, with his ear for natural, almost musical dialogue, compels you to keep listening."
The Millions - Joseph Han
"It’s so damn good. After reading the last sentence of the final short story, I just sat there feeling stunned."
Starred Review Foreword Reviews
"Brilliant."
The Star Tribune
"Flawless. . . . a masterwork by a major talent."
Daily Beast
"An inspired debut."
Brandon Hobson
"Morgan Talty's Night of the Living Rez is a beautifully crafted, raw and intimate book about youth, friendship, and family on the reservation. These stories are profoundly moving and essential, rendered with precision and intimacy. Talty is a powerful new voice in Native American fiction."
Observer
"Reflects the complexity, irony and humor of what it means to love and be loved, and how love itself is often an imperfect thing, even in its purest forms."
Shondaland
"Emotionally pitch-perfect, immersive, and beautifully nuanced, Talty has gifted readers with a stunning debut that shows the interconnectedness of family, community, and ultimately who we are and what we can become. . . . devastating, satisfying, and heart-stopping."
The Rumpus
"Tender, searing insight tempered with humor and compassion. This is a book to sink into."
NPR Books
"Talty’s book haunted and thrilled me in its raw explorations of inheritance, grief and survival, imbued with humor and warmth."
San Diego Union-Tribune
"Accomplished. . . . It was the only book of 2022 that I read twice."
Orion
"Etched with humor, violence, tenderness, and insight, these braided stories burn bright."
Book Riot
"If you only read one short story collection this year, make it Night of the Living Rez."
TIME
"Captivating."
PureWow
"Unforgettable. . . . manages to assert that hope and forgiveness are possible."
The Portland Press Herald
"A triumph of fiction that values each and every one of its flawed characters deeply and that spins its stories in such a way that invites an immediate reread."
BuzzFeed
"Powerful."
The Boston Globe
"A perfect mix of funny, sad, timely, and intense, this one has something for everyone."
El Orion
"Etched with humor, violence, tenderness, and insight, these braided stories burn bright."
Cosmopolitan
"Gorgeous."
Debutiful
"Talty expertly reveals the complexities of his characters in each story."
Terese Mailhot
"Night of the Living Rez is true storytelling. It's a book so funny, so real, so spirited and vivid it brought me back to my own rez life and the people who made me."
Paste - Oscar Hokeah
"Talty’s Penobscot tribal community is eerily unique and tangibly universal. I can’t wait to dive into the pages of Night of the Living Rez to discover triumphs and failures akin to my own Indigenous communities. Moreover, Talty is sure to delight us with humor and mend our hearts with humanity."
Library Journal - Audio
★ 10/01/2022
Talty's debut collection of 12 connected tales gives listeners a glimpse into what it means to be a modern Penobscot living on a reservation in Maine. Told from the perspective of a Penobscot man named David, the stories move back and forth between his childhood and adulthood. The layered tales wrestle with complex and sometimes heavy topics—generational trauma, family dynamics, addiction, illness, and uncertain futures. Each is full of heart and humor, capturing the trauma and hardship, but also the joy that comes with reservation life. Narrator Darrell Dennis, an Indigenous Canadian actor, creates a moving listening experience. Dennis's carefully paced and engaging voice matches the restraint and directness of Talty's prose. Of special note is the author's note at the end. Talty explains his use of the language and the decision to use phonetic instead of traditional spelling. While listeners won't see the phonetic spelling, this note provides them with the knowledge of how the language is meant to be understood. VERDICT This rich collection of interwoven stories will add a new perspective to any collection. Highly recommended, especially for libraries looking to highlight diverse voices and communities.—Elyssa Everling
Library Journal
07/01/2022
DEBUT At one point in Talty's debut, his young characters discuss how many times they will watch the Sherman Alexie-penned film Smoke Signals in the upcoming school year. It's a fitting reference point, as perhaps no work proves a closer touchstone for Talty's short stories than Alexie's story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, which served as inspiration for 1998's Smoke Signals. Talty's debut is likewise constructed as a series of interconnected stories centered around a single Indigenous character navigating the small pleasures and existential pangs of modern existence. Here, that's Penobscot narrator David, the sketch of his life told in a collage of 12 stories, moving back and forth between childhood and adulthood and through a cast of memorable orbiting characters. What's so impressive in this story collection—and ultimately what imbues the work with such poignancy—is Talty's restraint, his refusal to opt for sensationalism over authenticity. There's a graceful interplay between his stories here, with portraits of pronounced family tragedy bleeding beautifully into those of gentle childhood hijinks. Talty understands each life as a small mythology, a grand accumulation of minutiae, and brings depth and nuance to each of these stories. The result is a work that builds in power across its pages, its woven narrative tapestry becoming richer and more robust with each successive story. VERDICT Talty's debut story collection is a wonderfully understated work with sneaky emotional force, anchored by a memorable main character and the author's keen understanding of childhoods that have been marked by instability.—Luke Gorham
JULY 2022 - AudioFile
Darrell Dennis narrates these 12 interconnected short stories with calculated restraint, empathy, and a sure sense of the author’s voice. His gift for timing gives the Native American protagonist a powerful self-consciousness and convincing sense of his people (Maine’s Penobscot tribe) and their place. The central character, David, tells the first-person stories in a warts-and-all-style that is delivered in a convincing tone and careful cadence. The short fictions that comprise this audiobook teeter from funny to sad and have the feel of real experience. This debut collection captures the dark contours of the rez—drugs, drink, petty crime, lack of opportunity. The author has created an isolated and insular world. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2022-04-22
In 12 linked stories, all narrated by a character named David, Talty’s debut collection provides an unsparing perspective on the harsh reality of life in the Panawahpskek (Penobscot) Nation of Maine.
Drug addiction, mental illness, and economic insecurity haunt Talty’s characters, whose personal flaws and straitened circumstances combine to keep them trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair. As a child, in the story “In a Jar,” David lives with his mother and her partner, Frick, a part-time medicine man and equally part-time father figure, when his pregnant older sister, Paige, arrives to ratchet up the tension in the family’s already overburdened life. By the time David reaches young adulthood, as portrayed in stories like “Burn” and “Get Me Some Medicine,” he’s hanging out with Fellis, his friend and fellow visitor to the local methadone clinic. The pair spend their evenings drinking and contemplating how they’ll get their hands on “pins” (Klonopin), culminating in the story “Half-Life,” in which David asks himself, “How’d we get here?” but then wonders whether “the only question that matters” is “How do we get out of here?” For all his stories’ terse realism, Talty, a citizen of the Penobscot Nation, is adept at unearthing his characters’ emotions, as he does in the elegiac “The Blessing Tobacco,” in which David’s grandmother, well down the road of cognitive decline, believes he’s her late brother Robbie, who died as a young boy, and fiendishly punishes him to exorcise her guilt for her role in Robbie’s long-ago death. David’s observation in the story “Earth, Speak” that “this reservation was for the dead” serves as a mournful benediction over these bleak, but empathetic, tales.
Ranging from grim to tender, these stories reveal the hardships facing a young Native American in contemporary America.
