I really did not know what to expect when I started The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. I was intrigued by the description of the novel as well as the Paul Tremblay comparison so was happy to give it read.

Many years ago, four friends went elk hunting trip where they should not have been hunting. When they opened fire on a herd of elk, a pregnant elk was struck causing her and the unborn deer to die. This also brought something much darker into play. Something evil and hellbent on revenge.

Even though years have passed, the spirits of the murdered elk do not forget and will have their revenge. Now the four friends find themselves confronted with the angry spirits in different ways. Ricky had already reached his end in the parking lot of a bar, but the terror is just beginning for Lewis and his wife Peta, Cassidy, and Gabriel Cross Guns. A decade may have passed since the hunting incident, but the spirit of the elk and of the people will never forget and will never forgive.

The summary for this book is short because this is a very difficult book to sum up. The Only Good Indians is an interesting mash up on genres and there is a lot to like in this novel. There is a substantial back story on culture that runs throughout the story as the different characters have to come to terms with their culture and their relative standing in relation to the culture. How does Lewis, a Native American married to a white woman, fit into his culture? What is the mental price he must pay for not living on the reservation? Those are just a sampling of what is found within and this is very good stuff. There is also, as advertised, a lot of horror in the novel and some of it is very visceral and very well done. Jones is an accomplished writer and his skill is on display in this book.

Where the novel went off track for me was in the flow of the narrative which I found to be too disjointed to keep me on track. It seemed at times as if Jones was not sure where he wanted to go with the story. While I am sure that is not the case, I thought that the story would get heading in the wrong direction and lose the momentum it was building. There were some very strong chapters in the book but it never seemed to come together to form a complete tale for me. The writing was strong. The idea behind the book was well thought out. I just could not get into the execution of the story and never got my interest completely peaked. I have seen a lot of good reviews for this novel so it definitely has an audience. It just never got on track for me and I ended the story feeling a little unsatisfied.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Saga Press for this review copy. The Only Good Indians is scheduled to be published on July 14, 2020.

A phenomenal book. THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS delivers everything we expect from a Stephen Graham Jones novel: surprising and bone-chilling horror, wicked humor, and a wholly original narrative voice.

What makes INDIANS top-tier Jones is the emotional honesty that haunts every page. This book feels mythic. It also feels immediate and of the now. It’s painful and powerful. And it rocks along like a freight train headed into the darkest part of the night.

Stephen Graham Jones is a favorite of mine, and I was really looking forward to this one. I can tell you it was worth the wait. It's about a group of childhood friends pursued by a vengeful entity that wants to exact revenge for an incident during an elk hunt that happened in their teens.

There's a lot of horror and violence here (warning: people and animals) but there's also sobering social commentary on the lives of Native Americans. It could have been a 5-star read, but I have to admit I kept putting it down for something else at times when the narrative slowed. When it gets rolling, however, it's some of the best horror fiction I've read in long time.

This book was riveting and suspenseful. Once I started, I was hard-pressed to put it down. It’s creepy and horrific at times. Fair warning, there is a lot of (pretty detailed) animal and human death/violence in this book.

The story was really really good, but there was a lot of basketball play in it. I don’t really know basketball; so I found it kind of difficult to picture some of the descriptions from the different basketball games. The POV flip flopped a lot throughout the later sections of the book and could be a little confusing at times. Overall though, this was really good horror.

Always excited to add Native American novels to the collection; personally this felt a little TOO slow-burning for me and I found myself losing interest.

Overall I enjoyed reading this story. It starts off kind of slow but the creepiness starts to show up as each page is turned. The writing is good and it keeps the reader engaged even in the quiet parts of the book. I loved the characters and Stephen Graham Jones does an excellent job making characters the reader can connect with and like. The real horror doesn't kick in until about 20% of the way in and I was definitely disturbed. It went from slow creepy build to outright horror. And you see it coming and start thinking, "Oh the horror! Don't do it!" Exactly what one looks for in a horror book. The book is basically made up into three sections that all tie together. Each one has that same concept; slow build and then horror. The third section of the book was probably my favorite although the level of detail of a basketball game did get a little long for me. Overall I enjoyed this book. It's a pretty short read and would recommend for the good writing and good story telling.

Four American Indian men took part in a traumatic and disturbing event during their youth, that to this day seems to linger in their minds. Each man has found their own way to deal with the feelings associated with this event over the years. It seems that they are being tracked by an entity bent on revenge. In an effort to fend off this entity the men have shed their traditions and culture, but could this have actually made matters worse? Things will take a violent turn if these men aren’t careful.

This book has been one of my most anticipated horror releases for 2020, so when I found out I won a copy I was over the moon. When I started reading I immediately found myself feeling confused about the direction of the story. I think I was expecting something more straightforward and what I found was much more convoluted and at times above my head.

THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS is steeped in tradition and culture from the American Indian roots of the main characters. I don’t personally know much about these traditions, but I was easily able to pick up the direction that Jones was pointing the reader. You can truly feel the prejudice and the struggle that these main characters felt not only as adults, but throughout their lives. I loved how Jones kept each of the men as their own unique person when revealing how they learned to cope with these items, as well as the main traumatic event that took place in their youth.

One of my struggles came through in the writing style of Jones. The writing is absolutely captivating, but at times it felt disjointed to me. The story would flip perspective or topic and I didn’t understand what had happened because it wasn’t clear that a shift was occurring. I think Jones’ writing is very cinematic, to the point where these transitions would work beautifully on screen, but as a reader they were confusing.

I think some readers will struggle with the fact that this book is more of a quiet horror story than they may be expecting from the synopsis. There are no jump scares or gore for the sake of gore. Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly some graphic moments, but it’s more uncomfortable than scary in my opinion.

Overall, I think this book has a lot of really great social commentary mixed with a creepy vibe that will certainly work for readers who go in with the right mindset!

A huge thank you to Saga Press for my free copy!

Thanks to Saga Press, Stephen Graham Jones and NetGalley for this advanced reading copy.

Needless to say this is my first introduction to Stephen Graham Jones and what an auspicious introduction to his writing.
I judge the quality of any writing by how quickly I lose myself in the story and suddenly I’ve read many pages and where has the time gone. Such an event happened to me while reading The Only Good Indians. This story is so full of unique perspectives that the everyday reader rarely encounters. Maybe it’s my advanced age but I want to read stories from other voices besides the comforting familiar ones.
I had similar experiences reading The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen and There, There by Tommy Orange.
The cast of characters presented are varied while being tragically flawed in their own specific ways. Denorah....wow.
This unique novel is highly recommended.

This is very much an unusual and thrilling ride. I have to say, it didn't immediately grab me, although I wasn't disliking it either, but then a switch gets flipped and it goes rocketing off down a hidden turning.
Overall it's a great read. I did find my attention slipping at times, but current events are not doing my concentration any favours, and basketball isn't any part of my life (although its role in the book is a good fit).

I’ve long anticipated the follow up to Mongrels, just to see if Jones could top himself. He did. The Only Good Indians is a slow decent into Native hell, from the seemingly unstoppable stalking killer, to the myriad personalities of the protagonists, and finally to the depressive attitude of the reservation itself.

The Only Good Indians does what all truly great horror needs to do. It makes you care about the people in its pages. Jones does that masterfully here, and he does it with a master makers skill. The writing is sharp, poignant, and always on point.

Lovers of a great read do yourselves the favor of this book. I loved it, you should too.

THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS by author Stephen Graham Jones is an unusual story of life experienced by four friends on the reservation that somehow turns into a horror story along the way.

Lewis, along with three other friends, goes off in hopes of bagging elk at the end of the season, and ultimately find themselves breaking the rules by hunting on the land of the elders after risking life and limb by traveling in a truck that barely gets them there.

Success in locating a herd and downing several elk in a flurry leaves them with the impossible task of retrieving their kill, and as things go from bad to worse, the four friends lives are forever haunted by their actions from that fateful hunt, including the effect it has on those closest to them in the years to come.

Author Stephen Graham writes an excellent book that describes the difficulties of life on the reservation, and combines the folklore and superstitions that the four have grown up with that eventually morphs into the horror that drives this story as it builds up momentum like a freight train along the way, until the last few chapters lead to the supernatural conclusion that could never have been imagined by the four friends who had high hopes of a successful hunt that instead took a horrific wrong turn along the way.

5 stars.

I didn't care for the writing style or the plot (which was definitely not "horror" in my eyes), and by the time I got to the final chunk of this book, I was grumbling and huffing aloud in bed just waiting for it to be over. Truly, the last section of this book is one of the worst I've read in recent memory; maybe I'm not understanding the significance or something, but I found it laughable.

Ive read a lot of stephen Graham Jones' work and I can say that his unique writing style (Demon Theory, The Last Final Girl) while absolutely refreshing and fantastic is not for everyone. This however will appeal to everyone. A great page turning horror novel. Kept me up all night.

I started reading Stephen Graham Jones when I read Mongrels. I thought it a powerful piece of a family living on the precipice of a society to which they didn't really belong. I enjoyed the understatement and appreciated the coming-of-age narrative. That set me up for pretty much anything SGJ. More than anything, I think it's his voice which is as unique as his POV.

So, it was with a little glee that I was able to arrange for an advanced copy of The Only Good Indians. I had no idea what it was about. If you were to believe Paul Tremblay in his cover blurb the book is a masterpiece. When I saw that, I decided to reserve that opinion until I finished the book. Well, I finished the book and Paul is as right as he always is.

The Only Good Indians takes place in and along the BlackFeet Reservation in Montana. Four young American Indian men are chased by a ghost who is as implacable and cunning as any ghost in fiction. The reader isn't exactly sure who the protagonists and the antagonists are until they learn the backstory, and once learned, it's an interesting morality dance to see which side the reader comes out on.

Without giving any spoilers, ultimate survival hinges on a sixteen-year-old basketball phenom's ability to play res basketball in an epic game of 21 that will resonate through modern fiction for dozens of years.

The point of view is from those who live on an American Indian reservation. The narrative is so authentic, no Custer like me could have ever written it. Like Jordan Peele, Stephen Graham Jones shows us life through an uncomfortable but real morale lens, then dares us to inhabit it, and upon doing so, slams our heads back and forth into the harsh reality of it all. I've never been on a reservation, but I never doubted the authenticity. SGJ brought as much realness to the narrative as a scientist would to a textbook.

In the end, the book is about humanity. It's about love and friendship and regret and acceptance and the hardscrabble to accept or not accept a predetermined fate, all things that transcend race, religion, or economic circumstance. I read through The Only Good Indians in two days and in those two days I was ensconced in a way of life so unlike my own, but with people who I almost knew, that I regretted sliding past the last page.

But what I remembered throughout was that there's another part to the saying, The Only Good Indians are dead indians - said by too many white men over too long a span.

Order this book now so you can read it the moment it comes out.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones is a very well written horror tale that combines a creepy story of revenge with traditional Native American beliefs. This story centers around four men who all grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation. Throughout the story, we are allowed to feel what it is like to be a Native American living on a reservation and the struggle to be successful (which may involve leaving the reservation) while still respecting the beliefs of their elders and ancestors. I love that the reader gets to see the story from the point of view of all of the four hunters. The reader also gets to peek into the point of view of the elk as well when we get to hear the inner thoughts of the elk. This was reminiscent of Stephen King's Cujo when the reader is allowed to hear the inner thoughts of the dog as he succumbs to rabies. It allows the reader to feel the motivation of the spirit elk as it haunts/ hunts the men responsible for the slaughter. I also enjoyed to social commentary that was sprinkled throughout this book. The only thing I did not enjoy about this book were the many basketball scenes. I understand that basketball represented escape, both by simply playing the game for fun and as a potential means to earn a scholarship to go to college. But, there was just too much basketball talk and it really distracted me from being in the story. It lowered the book an entire star for me. Overall, I think this was a great read and I highly recommend it!

Kind of bummed that one of my most anticipated releases for Summer 2020 did not work out for me. Like others who did not rate this highly, I really struggled with the writing style. It was super hard to get into to and I found it made the story REALLY confusing. I had to back track and re-read parts on several occasions because I could not make it make sense. The author just expects you to know what he's talking about without even explaining it. And then 5 pages later you're like "oh, THAT'S what that meant." Not good. I also don't know where the "horror" aspect game in. Brutal deaths, yes. Edge of my seat, no. I also skimmed every basketball scene. I cannot read pages describing basketball moves. I actually liked the characters and found the parts about Native American culture really compelling and interesting, but it was so hard to find the parts to enjoy. I admittedly skimmed the last 5-10% of this book and probably would've DNF'd if it weren't provided by the publisher. Thank you NetGalley for advanced copy! I hope this works for someone else!

For Native Americans, there exists a special relationship between their lives and the natural world that surrounds them, which forms much of their spiritual beliefs. Animals also feature prominently in Native creation myths, legends, and art. They live with respect to the world around them, with care given to the environment they co-habitate in, careful not to over-fish, over-harvest, or over-hunt, and to use all the parts of an animal which they kill, with an eye toward sustainability. But what happens when a group of Natives indiscriminately kill animals and show no respect or reverence to the hunt?

Such is the central question in The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, which follows a group of Indians that are being haunted -- and hunted -- by a beguiling apparition. Ten years ago, these four friends trespassed on elder hunting grounds and massacred a herd of elk, a crime that banned them from the hunting preserve and made them infamous. Now, as the eve of that Thanksgiving massacre approaches, Lewis and his friends find themselves targeted by a strange, horned entity.

Stephen Graham Jones is a hell of a writer, man. His prose moves along in rapid clips, and he's terrific at character development. I had a real fondness for Lewis, one of the principle figures we follow over the course of the book, and Jones sucked me in. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to figure out Lewis's background, his past crimes, and why he was suddenly being haunted by this odd specter. I was right there with him as his paranoia grew, tracking and dismissing various claims to get to the bottom of things.

As good as he is at fashioning characters that get under your skin, Jones is especially, horrifyingly, good at crafting scenes that shock and make your blood run cold. I practically leaped off my sofa at one particular "OH HELL NO!" moment, unable to believe what I was reading, not because it didn't make a kind of sense for the narrative, but simply because I didn't want it to be true. And that was also when I knew all bets were off with this book and that Jones wasn't particularly interested in playing it safe with this narrative.

The Only Good Indians has plenty of shocks to be sure, but it's Jones' ruminations on these men's lives and the culture they've left behind and turned their backs on that seals the deal. Beyond being a wonderful ghost story of sorts, it's also a poignant commentary on mankind's relationship to the world and ecosystems around us, and the hope that we can somehow break the vicious and cyclical natures of violence and revenge. If there's any hope for our future generations, we have to rediscover that semblance of balance with the world and our place in it.

*I, stupidly, waited until access to my copy of The Only Good Indians expired before actually writing up this review, so please excuse the lack of specific reference to character names! Events kept vague to avoid spoilers*

I loved this book, though had to read it slowly, to take in the events - to handle reading some of them. I'm not a fan of the term 'literary horror' (because I honestly think good horror is, by default, literary), but I think TOGI is as fine an example of it as you'll read. It creeps, is thoughtful - makes the reader examine societal stratas, prejudice, rituals, respect and understanding of one's past - all while layering terror on horror, with some great action sequences to boot. Jones can draw a scene as clearly as if you're watching it in a film, with added smells, taste, textures - which is great until you reach the particularly gory moments (when I, for one, had to step away and take a little break!).
Jones treads that fine narrative line of making you wonder: is the protagonist haunted? Or is he mentally ill? Are we, the reader, being drawn into his guilty delusions? There's a switch up of POV part way through that answers many of those questions - and I rather suspect that might be the Marmite moment where other readers (having skimmed other reviews) find themselves shaken loose. I fell on the side of loving it - rage, tenderness, revenge, history, present day thoughts, despair and hope all weave together throughout the plot - which has depth. TOGI made me think hard about the world, but it took me there not by smacking me over the head with social commentary at the detriment of the plot, but by leading me gently, sometimes reluctantly, through shadows and memories, past blood and family. It's quite beautifully, and horribly, done.

The Only Good Indians is one of the hardest reviews I've had to write to date. This is an own voices horror novel about four friends who ten years ago committed a crime on their reservation that is coming back to haunt them, literally. Stephen Graham Jones broke his novel into three parts and a prologue that read as their own distinct sub-genres of horror. Honestly some portions hit better for me than others. I personally prefer parts 2 and 3 to the prologue and part 1.

I do not think I was the intended audience for this book and for that I'm sorry because I know I can't give this book the justice it deserves. There is quite a bit of Native American lore within this novel, some of which Jones explains, but other bits I know I'm missing since that isn't the culture I grew up with. Although it is a horror novel it isn't your typical horror novel. Do not go into this novel with preconceived ideas of horror but allow yourself to be taken along for the ride with these four friends and the monster that's haunting them.

Needlessly convoluted with a writing style some may find incomprehensible at times, The Only Good Indians nevertheless deserves its place in the current zeitgeist of horror focused on persons of color.