Welcome to The Librarian Is In, The New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next.

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Welcome to another episode of The Librarian Is In! For our book club episode this month and as a lead-up to Halloween, Frank and Crystal  read a spOoOoOkY horror book with supernatural themes. 

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

From New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience. Fans of Jordan Peele and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way. (Publisher summary.)

Were you able to guess the subject of Crystal's ASMR challenge this week? (Hint—you can find a photo of it on this page!)

See you next week!

Tell us what everybody's talking about in your world of books and libraries! Suggest Hot Topix(TM)! Send an email or voice memo to podcasts[at]nypl.org.

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Transcript

[Music]

[Frank] Hello and welcome to The Librarian Is In, the NYC Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next. I'm Frank.

[Crystal] And I'm Crystal.

[Frank] AKA, the dumb-dumb [inaudible] I went there [laughter]. I very not nicely called Crystal a dumb-dumb before we got on this recording, and that's not nice. It was --

[Crystal] Because I couldn't remember --

[Frank] -- kind of [inaudible] after, but still not nice.

[Crystal] Yeah. Because I couldn't remember if we also had homework assignments.

[Frank] Not [inaudible]. Don't --

[Crystal] Was I supposed to prepare a passage? I don't remember. Two weeks feels like a year ago, honestly.

[Frank] Bring up the scandal of the guessing game that you failed me at.

[Crystal] I'm going to ask you at the start of every episode, [inaudible], Frank.

[Frank] Now I can't resist. Crystal was like, I was wondering if I needed to prepare a passage for you [inaudible] before this podcast. And I was like, we read the same book, [inaudible] it's not a guessing game you dumb-dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb [laughter]. So I apologize, though, that was not called for. [Inaudible] somewhat dim, hazy-minded person [laughter]. I'm glad you're laughing. She's like, it's --

[Crystal] Only --

[Frank] -- [inaudible] after.

[Crystal] Only from you, Frank, no one else can call me a dumb-dumb.

[Frank] Because I don't mean, I'm just -- but I do mean my -- well, I do [laughter]. Wait, I'm kidding, it was cute. I know you didn't fully mean to [inaudible] that you were referring to your anxiety about that I handed off to you when you didn't, to my reckoning, fulfill my needs about guessing a passage from a book.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] So, when you think about it, fine, it was about me and my needs, and I was disappointed and sometimes you get disappointed and you have to move on, and you don't lash out at the other person because you assume that they were being conscientious as they could be. And who knows -- [inaudible] who knows what's going on in their life that might have caused them to so-called disappoint you.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] It's not like it's an aggressive act towards --

[Crystal] Well --

[Frank] -- [inaudible] disappointing. Not always, right. But it's also a guessing game to discern that. But I think it's always safer, honestly, to err, make a mistake, on the side of giving someone the benefit of the doubt [inaudible]. We don't always do it, but it's always, I think, better than to be angry. Anger doesn't often get y places. Anger by -- how did we start on this? But anger on it's -- when you're feeling angered, dealing with it yourself can get you places. But when it's spewed out towards someone else, doesn't always. I mean, it might feel good in that moment, but -- I'm not even talking about interaction, I'm just [inaudible] more on what we're talking about. It doesn't often ultimately make you feel that great. Do you agree?

[Crystal] That's true. I totally agree with that, thinking about --

[Frank] Yeah.

[Crystal] -- how I grew up and a lot of things. Yeah.

[Frank] Crystal, like you know --

[Crystal] Just some good introspection right there. Mm-hmm.

[Frank] But like you said, you said, I can take it from you, Frank. Sometimes I think I get across my real feelings that might be angry or disappointed in a sort of overdramatic way that some people think is sort of funny, or hopefully do. So I was just like, how dare you disappoint me, even though like you can hear the real feelings in my voice [laughter]. And [inaudible] get it out, but I don't -- I feel like I'm hurting someone, and I don't want to. I don't want you to feel bad.

[Crystal] No. I think it also depends on people's relationships, too. Right? Like the way I joke with friends about things, like my roommate gives me a hard time all the time because I have a bad memory about like her schedule, and I constantly get it wrong, even though she's like told me repeatedly that she's going to be gone for the weekend or whatever. And so it's like a funny thing because like we have a lot of mutual respect for each other, so it doesn't bother me. But I think it comes off differently if like somebody that is doing it in a disrespectful way, or, you know, you don't have that preexisting relationship with. So I don't mind. I do have a pretty bad memory.

[Frank] That's an interesting saying you just brought up actually, because it reminds me of something I read in The New Yorker , I've sort of been obsessed with The New Yorker lately. I just love reading that magazine in terms of a place that seems to me a trustworthy place, that has a sort of selection of across-the-board interesting articles about culture and what's happening right now. And there was one in the newest one about generational difference. Like it was something like, is it meaningful to define yourself or align yourself with a generation, like, oh, I'm millennial, or I'm a boomer, or I'm -- and that -- does that have real meaning? Or are we just people of different ages and --

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] -- experience? It's interesting. So I mean, as we all know, a lot of the labels for generations are very much driven by marketing, in terms of create -- I mean, in this article it says something like there were -- marketing departments have like a budget towards generational research, meaning to sort of keep that sort of mythos, maybe you could say, of the generational tags going, because then you can target someone and make them believe that that's what they are. Like, you is a millennial, you're too hairy to find [inaudible] to do this, so here, we're going to sell you this to make it better or whatever.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] But anyway, he said something you just sort of reminded me with your roommate about a study that was done and one of the interviewees, which is Gen Z according to a label, said something like, I'm very annoyed and upset by a friend of mine who's always late to meetings that we have, or gatherings we have together and dinners, whatever. And, you know, they respect that I want them to be there on time, but at the same time I respect their choices of -- their ability and their identifications that possibly being late for other reasons. And it became this sort of like, no, I forgive you. No, I forgive you. No, I forgive you. No, I forgive you. But yet there was still annoyance there.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[Frank] But like it's sort of like what we've been talking about, what do you do with that? If you sort of look at someone like, okay, they're a person, and I am personally annoyed by them being late, but are they doing it maliciously, is it -- or is it a just personality -- part of their personality toolbox? And where do you end with that? I'm sorry, [inaudible] I can imagine at some point some friend saying, I can't get together with you anymore, just [inaudible] pulling away almost passively and just let the relationship sort of fade away because they just couldn't handle it, but they couldn't quite confront it in a sort of direct way, they just had to sort of keep forgiving them. What were you going to say?

[Crystal] I was going to say, my strategy is, I just plan for things earlier than they actually have to happen, and then everybody can be late, and it'd still be fine.

[Frank] Yeah? Strategizing [laughter]. Strategizing, I guess that's -- I don't want to -- I feel bad at strategizing.

[Crystal] This is a [inaudible] but you mentioned The New Yorker , and that made me think of The New York Times , did you read that New York Times article called -- I think it's called what is a bad art friend, or "Who Is the Bad Art Friend"? Do you know the one I'm talking about?

[Frank] About --

[Crystal] About the woman who -- the writer who donated her kidney. You have to read this article, Frank, and then we have to discuss it at the next podcast.

[Frank] I'd [inaudible] this, maybe for the next book club we can read articles again. I used to do that before and that could be fun.

[Crystal] Yes. I'm going to send that to you later. Oh, "Who Is the Bad Art Friend?" in The New York Times . And it's by -- who's the author? Because I think they did a really good job of writing it, too. By Robert Kolker.

[Frank] So what is it in a nutshell?

[Crystal] I almost feel like I won't even explain it adequately, but essentially it was a writer who donated a kidney kind of anonymously, not to somebody that she knew, but it kind of gave this give to the world. And then in her group of writer friends another writer uses it as inspiration for a story, and then like all this other stuff kind of gets revealed. And it's sort of like, you know, what is original arts, what is inspiration, is this plagiarism? There's a lot of like interesting things in it that I feel like with us as library workers there's a lot to be gleaned from it. But it's also very -- like it's a very long article. And as you read more and more you're just like, what? This happened? Oh my goodness, you just keep going, and it's really fascinating. And I think the writer did a good job sort of laying out both sides. So in terms of people I've talked to, it's sort of like [inaudible] may be on Dawn's side, other people may be on I think it was Sonya is the other writer's side. I mean, ultimately I think the winner is the writer, because it was a good job.

[Frank] Well, meaning --

[Crystal] The article.

[Frank] -- taking someone else's story for -- someone else's realized story for their own art --

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] -- [inaudible] fiction piece, that's the issue there? That's the debate?

[Crystal] Yes.

[Frank] Or [inaudible]?

[Crystal] Basically, but it's much more detailed than how I'm presenting it, and there's so many aspects, and I could really see you going like either way as to who you would maybe side with, or if either of them, or any of them.

[Frank] What does it mean by art friend? What does that term refer to?

[Crystal] I'm assuming like they're talking about like writing as a form of art, and maybe that's the --

[Frank] Art friend?

[Crystal] Art friend, yes.

[Frank] Oh.

[Crystal] Yeah.

[Frank] I'm confused, but -- but interested.

[Crystal] Yes. Read it. Read it and then we'll discuss [laughter].

[Frank] What does it mean to be a good art friend, or are you a good art friend, you'll send it to me?

[Crystal] I will send it to you.

[Frank] All right. Speaking of donating kidneys, let's get into this book.

[Crystal] I mean, they weren't donated [laughter].

[Frank] There's some guts and gore in here.

[Crystal] So much, Frank.

[Frank] Well, the only -- Crystal and I read The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. And when we were thinking about reading something spooky for the Halloween period of time that we find ourselves in, someone in one of our departments I remember said to you, oh, that one's not too scary [laughter]. And -- because Crystal wasn't sure she could take too much horror. And I was -- [inaudible] and then I was reading it and I was like, what? This is straight up horror going on here.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] Right?

[Crystal] I'm disturbed. I'm very disturbed.

[Frank] Did you finish it all?

[Crystal] Yes. I struggled. I mean, I liked it a lot, actually, but there were moments where I was just like, what is happening, why is this happening, why am I reading this [laughter]?

[Frank] Yeah. I mean, so The Only Good Indians really, in a nutshell -- Nutshell , another good book by Ian McEwan. In a nutshell is -- and again, it's in the blurb of the book is, you know, for Native Americans, indigenous [inaudible], Indians --

[Crystal] The Blackfeet Nation --

[Frank] -- the [inaudible] --

[Crystal] -- right?

[Frank] -- of the Blackfeet Nation. As young 20 something's experiencing an event of their own makings, that has possibly supernatural and horrific repercussions for each one of them. And that's the sort of general title, if you want to read it, not the spoil it to death, but now we're going to spoil it up.

[Crystal] Spoiler it to death. Right.

[Frank] Spoil it up.

[Crystal] You have to do discuss this.

[Frank] No, you don't have -- what?

[Crystal] To like to spoil some of it to --

[Frank] You have --

[Crystal] -- discuss it, right?

[Frank] No.

[Crystal] Yeah.

[Frank] I've seen some reviews that people do. Some have reviews that are spoiler filled, others without.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] [Inaudible] spoilers? I mean, I don't know. It depends if you really want to be not know -- like I don't like -- as I've said, I don't like going into a book knowing too much about it. And some people shockingly to me don't really care if they know the ending. Some people read the ending first sometimes, which it's a good example of what you assume everybody is -- when you make assumptions about people, like it's truly true that I would think, oh nobody really, pretty much nobody would want to know the ending of a book you're about to read.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] And of course there are people who do. So it's another example of the assumptions we make about people.

[Crystal] I will say, I didn't read any reviews, especially ones that had the spoilers. So I actually kind of like -- like I'm someone who generally doesn't mind spoilers too much, but for a horror book like this, I think it was an interesting experience to read it not knowing what was going to happen, because my experience of it was kind of built on that, like in terms of how I felt about the pacing, the kind of like realization of what was going on. And then the complete dreads afterwards of like, oh, there's like still another half of this book to go and it's not to go well for these people.

[Frank] Well, there was a moment that we will discuss that I'm glad I didn't know was coming because it was truly shocking to me. And I --

[Crystal] Which one?

[Frank] -- I was --

[Crystal] I mean, there were so many.

[Frank] Well, all right. I was really shocked by being shocked, because sometimes thinking of myself as this elderly unshockable person, you know?

[Crystal] Elderly? No.

[Frank] Elderly. But just [inaudible], so we said four people, four guys, Ricky --

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] -- Cass, Gabe, and Lewis, friends on a Blackfeet reservation. And they basically -- I mean, almost on a lark/dare, in a way, I don't know the reason really, is go and hunt down some elk. But they end up -- the elk up in an area of the reservation that's reserved for elders, that's sort of untouchable, that's part of their culture is that you don't go in there and do that. And they start shooting them up. I mean, primarily just for the thrill of it, the achievement of it, and also for the meat like to survive on for their neighbors and themselves. And -- which brings up the interesting cultural point that part of the belief of the Blackfeet at least is that -- or some tribes is that you only kill what you use. Like you -- if you kill an elk, you have to use that meat, it has to be for a purpose to survive. Like honoring almost the elk's spirit that you're going to not just kill for sport, you're actually going to -- hear the construction?

[Crystal] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[Frank] [Inaudible] still going on. You're going to use all the meat for good. And that's sort of like spiritual transaction that these -- I'll say sometimes Indians, because they call themselves Indians, even though more than halfway through there is that sort of [inaudible] debate about, oh, are we Native Americans or are we Indians, you know, they themselves can call themselves what they please, but I don't mean it disrespectfully.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[Frank] You know? I mean, one of them jokes, like, you know, one little, two little, three little natives, doesn't sort of flow as much as one little, two little, three little Indians. They make a joke about that, so I'm just [inaudible] bounce around from different terms, or do you think I shouldn't?

[Crystal] I don't know. I mean --

[Frank] [Inaudible] say, it's true, like about -- but again, not being -- I know that -- well, we're really twirling off on tangents. All right.

[Crystal] Well, I'll be like very honest in this and say that, like, I remember a few years -- years ago, right, I was talking to a teen about part-time diary of an Indian, the --

[Frank] Oh yeah.

[Crystal] -- Sherman Alexie book, right?

[Frank] Yeah.

[Crystal] And I refer to the character as he referred to himself, which was American Indian. And I remember the teen really did not like that. And since then I'm just kind of default to like more generic term of like Native American or indigenous. Or in this case I think like the specific tribal nation of like Blackfeet Nation was probably most appropriate, just because I can understand how people -- you know, like I don't live the experience, I just want to be respectful of like how different people if they are hearing certain things that they don't --

[Frank] Yeah.

[Crystal] -- yeah. It could be very --

[Frank] I mean --

[Crystal] -- upsetting.

[Frank] -- I heard that this book itself was initially under fire on Twitter, of course, because it was called The Only Good Indians . And I even knew this phrase, I don't even know who said it, but I know it was way back, but I did know the -- do you know the completion of this phrase?

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] Back in the day like --

[Crystal] Yes, I do.

[Frank] -- [inaudible] you know, white guy, sergeant, colonel, corporal, whatever said, the only good Indians are dead Indians.

[Crystal] Yeah.

[Frank] And that's -- so when the title first came out people were outraged, quote/unquote "until" they realized Stephen Graham Jones is Blackfeet, is an Indian himself, or indigenous person himself. And then that changed that story. Which actually brings us back to what I was starting to say about the crux of this book is that the belief that you kill an animal to eat it or use its body to survive, and that's the transaction that's an acceptable one in the reservation.

[Crystal] But he -- Lewis, the one that -- because they kill eight -- well, nine elk, right? And the one that he gets to he realizes is like a -- not even like a grown cow, I guess, the female elk, and the one that was pregnant, right? And upon the realization of that I think that's when he feels the guilt because she kept -- even though she was shot, she kept struggling to get up and to like have life because she had this elk calf. And he had to like shoot her like two more times.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Crystal] And I think the guilt of that was what led him to try to, I guess, like, even out the I guess the karma or whatever by making sure -- like he promised her, after she died or whatever, that all her meat was going to be used and he gave it away to like all the elders, you know, used every part of it. Yeah.

[Frank] But the other --

[Crystal] So I --

[Frank] -- elk they killed, all four of them didn't get used because they were getting -- they were going to get caught and they ran. And --

[Crystal] Yes.

[Frank] -- they were just left there, like as a burial ground of --

[Crystal] Mm-hmm. And I think it -- it speaks to what you were saying before about how like I think they were like really caught in this moment. Like, essentially they started shooting, I think there was maybe blood lost or whatever, because they killed the nine, technically the 10 with the calf, right, and the person who had the truck, like they couldn't even put two, you know, elks in it. There was no way to transport it. So they were clearly not thinking. I feel like this book also -- I mean, I guess there must've been that -- was it like a -- I'm sure horribly racist nursery rhyme or something, but the -- out of the Christy book.

[Frank] Don't even start that. Well, we read it. No, I read it with Rhonda [assumed spelling]. And Then There Were None , which is the Agatha Christie book, which --

[Crystal] They used to be called --

[Frank] -- was [inaudible] Ten Little Indians , but then as Rhonda and I discussed, and anyone listening, it's urged that you go back to that one, Ten Little Indians was changed from an even more racist title, ten little "N" words, basically.

[Crystal] Oh, oh, no.

[Frank] Really bad.

[Crystal] Nope.

[Frank] Yeah, that's -- yeah, like, nope.

[Crystal] I'm out. I'm out [laughter].

[Frank] Yeah. And Rhonda [inaudible] that, so yeah. Good memory -- good memory, good point. So -- but I brought this all up, which is definitely a part of what we're talking about in terms of cultural, like what to call a Native person, about impact of cultural -- because a lot of the book is horror, which we haven't even gotten into, but it is also about cultural specificity. And reading about someone else's culture in our -- my -- from you and my point of view, because we're not part of a tribe or lived on a reservation. And so I brought up that -- the crux of the story because I did hear that some people could not figure out sometimes why there was this revenge plot, then, set into motion about what had happened. Because the impact of not using the meat they had killed was sort of lost on some readers because it wasn't so culturally important. Whereas some natives, Native Americans or indigenous people, grew up with that concept.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] That this was something that was in their culture, that you don't kill something unless you use it to survive. And it would've been lost on me too if I didn't sort of try to really read and see what was happening. Like when you even mentioned that partly why they didn't take all the nine they killed, because they came upon so many elks they didn't -- couldn't believe their luck, and then also the blood loss, you said, and this sort of warlike thing kicks in. They couldn't even load two on a truck. And you reminded me of how good Stephen Graham Jones' writing is, because that moment, just about the debate of whether to -- how to put two elks on a truck and the actual truck itself and the mechanics of the truck, and their broken-down truck, which is also the cultural indicator how they live, was so well written and so evocative that it popped back in my mind as like a moment. And that's why it stuck with me. But you can see how a cultural thing like that might get lost. Also the whole basketball thing, which is something we could talk about, about I did not know that basketball or the playing of it was a huge deal on some reservations.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] That it's a cultural thing and competition and sport, and maybe indicative of like some poorer neighborhoods where you just need a ball and a makeshift hoop, and you can go for it. I don't know.

[Crystal] I mean, I think that's very insightful, like what you're saying, because there were definitely moments in the beginning and the end too with those particular subject matters where I was like, I'm definitely reading this from an outsider looking in. This is clearly significant in some way, but, you know, I'm not really getting all the nuances of it. And even just like hunting culture, like in general, too, you know, because I think, you know, there are people who are not Native American who also like hunt and maybe can relate to it in some way. And I kind of really like that about this book. I kind of like the fact that he didn't spell it out for us, right? Like you just kind of -- it was there, and it was written directly to his audience that he wanted, right? And we were kind of like learning about it on the side and whatever, you know, doing research on our own, but he did not make it -- like it was not for a non-Native audience, you know, and I appreciate that.

[Frank] Which is an interesting way to put it. Like, because I was thinking just this morning, like, you know, you'd think a writer or a writer would want to write for as many people as possible, whatever that means. And you could be absolutely right, but I think you and I can still read this and get a great deal out of it.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] Of course --

[Crystal] Absolutely.

[Frank] -- a lot of impact is missing, you know? You know, like me reading The Stories of John Cheever , I sort of feel like a real impact because it's sort of a suburban environment I grew up in, and I also know my parents aspired to it, and they're the same generation. So I sort of had that feeling of cultural connection or meaning -- that has meaning for me. But yeah, someone else can still get something out of this story too.

[Crystal] I think I like the fact that he doesn't make it easy for --

[Frank] Right.

[Crystal] -- us. Like, we have to do -- we have to put in the work, right? And I've definitely read books that have gone the other way, where maybe it's like an Asian American author and they are like really spelling out everything, to the point where I also start to feel othered or like this is not really for me as an Asian American, you're really writing of the white American audience, right?

[Frank] So they're being didactic?

[Crystal] Yes, because, like -- or if you have phrases in Korean and then you write it again in English like right after, and I'm like, well, is this -- you know what I mean? And I kind of respect books that will ask the reader to do a little bit more work and invest a little bit more time in that. Yeah.

[Frank] That's a good -- yeah, that's great, because that brings me to the voice of the book and the narrator, because when you really think about it, like the narrator is written in a very specific voice. And it's almost like it's a Blackfeet or Native American man just sitting around telling you this story, because it's definitely in a very specific voice. But it's not a character in the book. You know what I mean? It's almost like --

[Crystal] Is it not? I thought I -- I thought --

[Frank] Who? Who is it [inaudible]?

[Crystal] Maybe I misinterpreted. I thought it was --

[Frank] I mean, it is --

[Crystal] -- the actual Elk Head Woman at some point.

[Frank] Well, see, that's the thing, you get -- I think it's written in one voice, but you get different points of view.

[Crystal] Got it.

[Frank] The voice telling you the story is saying, okay, hey, now we're -- we're in Lewis' mind, we're going to hang out with Lewis for a while. And then now, we're going to actually get into Elk Head Woman's head.

[Crystal] Okay.

[Frank] And now you have Denorah's point of view. And --

[Crystal] What's that -- what's that like [inaudible] whatever --

[Frank] Yes.

[Crystal] -- the [inaudible]?

[Frank] But it takes different points of view, but it also has its own flavor. Well, I guess like any [inaudible] narrator would have his own tone and style. This one's very colloquial and very much a part of the other let's says men, even though we don't know the gender of this author -- of this voice, this narrator. But it's almost like it's one of the guys, like one of the four guys. You could've been one of their friends. Like, he's like, yeah, because the voice is very -- at first when I was reading it, it's very -- I was thinking of [inaudible], that -- because it was sort of like --

[Crystal] I thought of that too.

[Frank] Did you? Like we were [inaudible] sort of tough guy voice, but very self-deprecating.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] [Inaudible], you know, existentially inclined, and deprecating in a way that's like, you know, yeah, I'm just like some big lug kicking through life, you know, that's the way it goes, man. Like, let's sit down by the fire and I'll tell you all about it. And like that sort of voice that you have to really sort of enjoy to get into. And I sort of do like that sort of [inaudible] voice. And -- because [inaudible] a healthy dose of self-deprecation, and a healthy dose of fatalism. Like, I'm on a train, man, and I can't stop. It's keeping going and I just got to figure out how to stay on and hold on to, you know, that kind of voice. And I sort of like that. I like that noir voice.

[Crystal] I think the way it started with kind of a brief chapter about like Ricky --

[Frank] Yeah.

[Crystal] -- and what happened there, and you're like, how does this relate, and then in the next section which follows Lewis until like halfway through the book, it kind of like starts to unravel a little bit of that mystery of what was actually going on. Because you have no idea as you're like being dumped into the book. And I think that reminded me a lot of those kind of noir detective stories, where maybe you'll have a mystery that's being -- trying to be solved by this person, and the kind of --

[Frank] Yeah.

[Crystal] -- spareness in maybe some of the descriptions, although there are some paragraphs that are like, you know, like wonderfully descriptive too. But a certain like straightforwardness that kind of writing --

[Frank] Yeah.

[Crystal] -- reminded me of, you know --

[Frank] Right. And saying what I said reminded me of it because of what you said that there is no explaining to. The guys talk at you as if you're also one of the tribe.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] You know, there's no need to go -- just the joy of going into detail is the joy of going into detail, not because I need to explain anything to you. But you just hit on what it -- now this is a good point too is that this is -- the structure of the book, I think he totally started with Ricky, [inaudible] Ricky.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] Ricky's death, you know, the revenge on Ricky first just sort of say, [inaudible] you're going to get some blood and guts, and here's a big kapow [assumed spelling] opening.

[Crystal] Yeah.

[Frank] And like you said, they go into -- Lewis, another one of the four men. And Lewis' story is a third of the book. You know?

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] It's not -- the other guys, Gabe and Cassidy, don't get as much personal detail as Lewis gets. Lewis definitely is a -- almost a stand in for the author, I think. But that brings up a great point, because some people are reading it were getting like a little frustrated with Lewis because it was going -- his life is going on and his voice and his experience and his growing guilt. He was the one that was most guilty of -- felt most guilty of the four, and there's a great line later where the elk, the dead, killed elk, by Lewis, says something like his guilt is the tether to which I have him, meaning guilt didn't exonerate him. Consciousness of his dead, his terrible deed, didn't exonerate him. It actually tethered him to impending doom. So -- but I enjoyed his voice, and I enjoyed what I -- I enjoyed being -- I'll say tricked, in some ways.

[Crystal] Yes.

[Frank] Because I was in my noir head, and I was like, Lewis is a great, great noir voice. He's like, I was on the reservation, got out. He's then working in a post office, trying to make it, married to a beautiful white girl with blonde hair, and trying to hold onto that, knowing full well what it means to be some Indian dude married to the white girl, and sort of building up this, like, you know, a lot's stacked against me, but I'm going to make it. I'm going to somehow get through this. I'm going to, you know -- this dumbo that I am, going to make it through. And then you introduce this sort of beautiful, feisty Indian girl, the only other Native girl in his office, Shaney, who -- I love that description. He says, because they're both Native, like, everybody else keeps trying to push them together, even though he has a wife that he loves very much, and now is very conscious, like, the Indian girl versus the white girl. And so, I was like, there's this triangle formulating that I was getting involved in. Like, oh, he's going to be -- all right, so they -- and I also thought, okay, like, he's doing some tropes here. The -- not virginal, but, like, the good girl, white girl, because she was really beyond good. Like, she was all there for him. She -- there's a great moment where they're playing basketball, and he says something like, "She's giving me everything I didn't know I needed, but I needed it so much." Then they make love, and I was like -- I even wrote in there, like, the girl is giving the guy, like, what he needs, and that makes him love her even more. And then you have this little femme fatale introduced in the form of Shaney, dark-haired, and she's sort of, like, you know, feisty, and borrows books from him. And, like, you're just like, is that going to be a thing? And then, terror, horror comes. And it's like -- what?

[Crystal] No, I was going to say a couple things. I totally forgot. No, the one thing was, like, yes, 100% agree with you about the way kind of the author kind of writes the story, where you feel tricked, and I was going to comment that, like, I actually kind of like when the author manipulates the reader in some way, right? I think that's what -- was it Gina Apostle's [assumed spelling] book that I, like, really enjoyed? But I felt similarly, where you get the little brief interlude with Ricky in the front. That kind of unsettles you. Then you kind of come into Lewis's story. You're like, oh, this is like a classic mystery, whatever. Like, it's just kind of moving along. You're getting a lot of details, and then it just goes straight into this, like, horrendous bunches of things that happen. And then it ends, and then restarts with Cassidy and --

[Frank] Right, Gabe.

[Crystal] -- Gabe, and at that point, I'm like, I don't know what's happening. And the most mundane stuff is maybe being described initially, and I'm just filled with dread the entire time, because now, like, you've shown me what you could do, and it was really horrifying.

[Frank] It reminded me a little bit of the movie "Psycho," in that --

[Crystal] I have seen that, and I know that reference.

[Frank] -- so I made sense. Good. I'm obsessed with that movie, and for many ways, but in most ways, like, I am more interested in the first part of the movie leading up to the shower killing than after. Like, after is fun, and Gothic and stuff, but what interests me most is that Hitchcock follows one character, Janet Leigh, through this crime she commits, but she's a good person. She feels guilty, but she gets through it. She drives out of town, and you follow all these mundane things she's doing, even -- one big crime. And then she's living, living. She encounters this guy, who's very sad, and disturbed, and she feels a little superior to him, and a little bit, like, helpful, but, like, a little bit like, ugh, I'm going to get myself out of my problems. This guy's got worse problems than I do. And then, you know, she gets in the hotel room, and, like, I'm going to take a shower and get over this. Gets in the shower, and we all know what happens. She gets brutally killed out of nowhere. And so, that's what I mean by tricked in a way. Like, you're tricked in that movie. It's like, I was involved in Lewis, in this possible burgeoning love triangle, or his own struggles with being an Indian person in the world, and then you know he's feeling very guilty about the elk situation and feeling -- and you are getting signs of, like, a presence, of visitation, this spiritual something that's coming after him. That he feels coming after him, but you don't know if it's just in his mind. His dog gets horribly killed -- not good for --

[Crystal] Lot of dogs, they did not have --

[Frank] -- like, brutal.

[Crystal] -- I was very upset about that.

[Frank] And then, I love -- again, a perfect example of how his tone, his style, Stephen Graham Jones, is about this sort of dark, existential, fatalistic tone. And I've never -- I haven't forgotten it. He's -- at that moment we've just been talking to, when it turns, like, brutally turns, he says -- Steven Graham Jones says about Lewis, like, Lewis and Shaney were talking, and then, you know, suddenly, he did this, and that, and then this thing just happened. And then he goes into the most brutal description of death.

[Crystal] Yes.

[Frank] Like, just classic horror movie lovers' description, like slicing off brains and things like that. And I love it when he goes, "And then, the thing that was happening happened." And then you realized it was all on a steamroller towards this moment, like, but we didn't know it. Like, we thought Lewis is going to be the protagonist. We're going to follow through, and get through with him, and the other guys might die, and he'll be the sort of final girl, sort of -- in horror language talk. And then he's done, and then you're like -- and, like you so wonderfully said, now you're really off base. Like, Ricky started it. Lewis is just finished [inaudible] now we're like, all right, we're just going to watch them get kicked off. And who the heck is going to survive?

[Crystal] I will say, too, with that scene that, like, starts with that really gruesome death, I think the author does such a good job of, like, destabilizing you throughout, because as it's happening, you're like, oh, it is the elk-head woman. No, it isn't. He's, like, tricking himself, and maybe it is. And you go -- you keep going back and forth, like just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and you don't really know, like, what's up and what's down. And I think the writing was very good in how that kind of, like, pulled you back and forth a lot. I was going to say, like --

[Frank] Well, then you get a double whammy. I mean, like, not only does Shaney get it, and his wife, and -- ugh.

[Crystal] -- well, the -- I was going to talk about the Shaney, and Shaney who is Crow, and the wife, Peta, is a white woman. I feel like there were -- there was a lot about, like, babies, and birth, and, like, maybe a continuation of a line. Like, even he -- let me see if I can find that part in the book, where he kind of talks about Lewis, about being married to this white woman, having kids, and, like, how that may be versus, actually having children with, like, a Native American woman. And I think, if I can -- oh, wait. No, that's not it. Maybe this is it.

[Frank] Take your time, dear.

[Crystal] I did have a good paragraph where I just, like, really enjoyed the writing that I had marked, but I think --

[Frank] Oh, I want to hear it.

[Crystal] -- oh, you want to hear that one first? Okay.

[Frank] No, yeah. I mean, I want to hear it.

[Crystal] Okay.

[Frank] I didn't pick a passage.

[Crystal] I picked one just in case [laughter]. It was like, I'm going to highlight one just in case.

[Frank] You must have, like -- all right.

[Crystal] So the one that I thought was maybe a good representation of like, how, as you're reading it, something kind of doesn't seem quite right, right? This is when Lewis gets knocked over by Peta when he's on the ladder, and she saves him. "Raining down over the two of them now -- Lewis almost smiles seeing it -- is the finest washed-out brown-gray dust from the fan, which Lewis must've hit with his hand on the way down. The dust is like ash, is like confectioners' sugar if confectioners' sugar were made from rubbed-off skin -- or rubbed-off human skin. It dissolves against Lewis's lips, disappears against the wet of his open eyes." And I just felt like the writing in that -- like, I really liked the visual of that scene, but also how gross this is, the way he describes it with the skin. I felt like a lot of the way he wrote the book was kind of beautiful, but just so unsettling in a lot of ways. So the part that I was talking about before -- so in Ricky's section and Lewis's section, they, like, keep thinking of these, like, headlines that might, like, come up. And so, "The headline kicks up in Lewis's head on automatic, 'Straight Out of the Reservation. Not the 'Full Blood to Dilute Bloodline' he'd always expected if he married white, that he'd been prepping himself to deal with. Because who knows? But full blood betrays every dead Indian before him. It's the guilt of having some pristine Native swimmers. They probably look like microscopic salmon, even though the Blackfeet are a horse tribe. It's the guilt of having those swimmers cocked and loaded, but never pushing them downstream, meaning the few of his ancestors who made it through rape and plagues, massacres and genocide, diabetes and all the wobbly-tired cars the rest of America was stunned with -- those Indians may as well have just stood up into that big Gatling gun of history." Yeah, I just thought it was interesting, because he seems to really grapple with that idea of, you know, marrying a white woman, and potentially, like -- I don't know, rejecting maybe his ancestry heritage. And I wondered what you thought of that in relation to the elk calf, too.

[Frank] I -- well, I did make a note to myself, all right, about that, because -- about what you're saying, is that what that passage you just read sort of indicates is this constant sort of anxiety and tussling between what one might feel they owe their culture, or what they might feel they owe their culture, which is themselves. That they can't somehow -- there's always a guilt mixed in with one's perception of moving out of their culture, like marrying a white woman, and then having children with her, as a betrayal almost of something. And that's definitely a personal thing, as impacted by the culture in which you were brought up, like the -- just the everyday quotidian things that manifest in you, and whether you know it or not, and you're either always reacting against them, rejecting them, or embracing them. And I wrote about that, because many times in the book, the characters, the four men, who are in their mid-30s at this point, whenever they meet a younger guy, will say, "Oh, I'm you 20 years from now," and/or, if you get a POV from a younger guy, they look at the four guys as, oh, that's me 20 years from now. Meaning the message of you can't escape your culture, like I'm going to -- like the example you just gave about the cars that nobody -- rest of America don't want. Like, what reservation life was like is that they're not going to get out of this. Even though Lewis and Ricky both do leave, they're the first to go, and Gabe and Cass stay on the reservation. And actually, the elk-head woman reserves the most brutal stuff for them for almost not leaving, which is a message in itself, but somewhat tied into what you're saying. And so, I say that because at the end, the only one of the four that has a child is Gabe. Denorah is another whole hour of discussion herself. And she's -- we should say the book does end very hopefully.

[Crystal] Yes.

[Frank] Positively. It's not a "ah" ending, like, you know, everyone's dead. But Denorah is the only child of one of the guys, and you might be able, if you've listened careful what we've talked somewhat coherently, that the elk, spiritual elk-head woman, elk that was killed with her baby inside her by Lewis, is going to go after everyone who was involved. But she's really going to go after those people's offspring, and the only one that's left is -- only one there is, is Denorah.

[Crystal] Yes.

[Frank] That's a whole story into itself, but what -- to put a pin on it, or a button as they say, what you asked, is that possibly Denorah escapes, or survives because she doesn't -- she does not accept the inevitability of the curse. She is not imbued to the core of her being with rights and rituals of her people, yet she very much loves her people. Might be a distinction. She's not aggrieved by or anxious about deviating from her people, though she truly loves them, which might be the core of it, that she -- the love is almost more important than the, oh, am I being a good Indian. Like, the men always debate whether they're being good Indians, and they always end up being sarcastic about it. Like, you know, what's a good Indian? Like, a dead Indian? Like, that whole thing -- and it's called "The Only Good Indians," and she's not preoccupied with that. She wants to be her, but yet, with a great deal of love. I mean, she has a very troubled relationship with her dad, Gabe, but at the end of it, she's like, I love him. I love him, and that maybe is what saves her.

[Crystal] She -- yeah, she breaks the cycle, you know, for sure, and allows -- because she could've just let her, I guess, stepfather kill the elk-head woman and her calf, and she stops it. And I think that breaking the cycle thing is, like, really important.

[Frank] It is, and -- you know what I was thinking about? I somehow didn't think so much about the love part until I just literally started talking to you about it. Because I was like, it's so easy to say, or it's such a trope to say, "They broke the cycle." I mean, it's certainly not easy to live that experience, when you break the cycle, but it's definitely something we're familiar with as a culture. Like, I broke the cycle of abuse, broke the cycle of, you know, poverty. But it obviously gives no -- not a lot of credit to the incredible difficulty it must be. But, when I started talking, I thought, oh, she really does have real love in her. That didn't fully consciously hit me as I was reading it, but as I think back on it, it was there. And I like that. I like that that maybe is the thing that got her through. I mean, certainly, like you just said, her empathy towards elk-head woman and her calf.

[Crystal] Calf, child.

[Frank] Yeah, child -- is truly manifested, considering there was that horrific scene of the elk-head woman following her. You must've been, like, crawling the walls with terror during that, because that was pretty darned creepy. Like, the elk-head woman was going after Denorah, who basically is the final girl, final part in this, like that trope. And she doesn't move very quickly. She just keeps walking towards Denorah, and sometimes she -- Denorah looks up, and she's a couple of yards away. Sometimes she looks up, she's not -- she's much closer. And it's, like, so creepy, right?

[Crystal] What was I going to say? Oh, I was going to say, like, yeah, for sure, and the breaking the cycle thing, I was going to say specifically it was referencing the fact that it was like the elk-head woman, I think, was trying to get essentially 10 lives, right? And Denorah was the one that was going to take the place of the elk calf that had died, because it was, like, nine adult elks and the calf. And I believe it was nine people that -- not all. They didn't -- because I think Nathan makes it.

[Frank] That's a great point. Actually, I love this. I love that you're drilling down, because it's like the sort of obsessive details that, like, a lot of horror fans have, and fans of any genre have. But I did write in my notes, like, okay -- oh, I was like, all right, there's nine elk. And I was like, let's see if Steven Graham is doing this mirroring thing, like he has one for each one.

[Crystal] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] And then I was like, all right, Gabe, Lewis, Cass, Ricky -- that's the four guys who were the killers, really. That's four, and then Peta, Shaney -- that's six. Victor, the police chief, and Jolene, Cass's girlfriend -- so that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight people killed. That's the only eight -- Nathan is Victor's kid, who you think dies, but he survives.

[Crystal] He does survive, but --

[Frank] But the ninth is Denorah.

[Crystal] -- no, I think she's the tenth.

[Frank] You know who I think the ninth could be?

[Crystal] Who?

[Frank] Harley.

[Crystal] No. I don't -- no.

[Frank] He doesn't count?

[Crystal] No, I actually think Nathan was supposed to be. That's why, remember, like, when she was -- when she was chasing Denorah, and, like, she sends Nathan off, because he does survive. And she was -- the elk-head woman was very conflicted as to who to -- because she wanted both of them dead, right? And I think Nathan would be representative of a, like, almost adult, like the elk-head woman was an almost-adult when she got killed, and Denorah was the child or something. That's my theory, but, like, I don't know.

[Frank] But then, that was just like a flaw to the plan. Like, he -- wasn't Nathan --

[Crystal] Well, no, I think that was what -- I think that's what she wanted. I think she wanted essentially, like, an eye for an eye. Like, this was her retribution, because she talked about how, at the end, with the whole Gabe thing, she essentially kind of like promises him that she would not go after his child. But then there was a line about how, like, the promises that matter, in terms of, like, this bigger thing, right? And then she goes after his child, right? Because she was trying to enact -- or maybe, like, balance the scales in some way, you know. But it didn't go that way, right?

[Frank] -- right, but she thought -- because she didn't always kill directly. She inspired killing, because Nathan was stomped -- or as we saw it, stomped to death by the horses, right?

[Crystal] No, I thought -- okay, again, the way the writing of it is -- it's so interesting. It kind of, like, tricks you in certain ways, kind of like as if you were looking through the writing through a flickering fan or something like that. Because there was a big thing about the fan, and how he sees the elk-head woman.

[Frank] As an image, yeah.

[Crystal] I think it was -- there was a moment when a loss has happened. Cassidy and Gabe are facing off, and Cassidy's wanting to shoot Gabe because of what happened to Jo. And then, sees the figure, shoots that figure, and at some point, Gabe realizes that, like, that's actually Nathan, because the hair was the same.

[Frank] Long black hair, yeah.

[Crystal] Yeah, and so they mistook him maybe with the help of elk-head woman to kind of make them see things. It's very unclear, so I think you could interpret it in a lot of ways. But I was going to say something else that I thought was kind of interesting, too, which was there was that part where they -- Gabe and Cassidy, because they're doing the sweat lodge.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Crystal] They're talking about how, like, it's so interesting how Lewis was, like, leaving home, and still got killed. And -- no, sorry, Ricky was leaving home and still got killed, and then Lewis, I think, had left home and was trying to come back home, right, and got killed. Where they were like, oh, you and me, Cassidy, or you and me, Gabe, like, we're just here. We've always been here, and maybe that's why we're surviving. And then, of course, they don't survive. And I --

[Frank] Exactly, right, and there's a part -- I was reading it before we went on today. I just opened any page, and it was a part where the elk-head woman is basically saying, "They're going to get it even worse, because they didn't leave." Which says a lot about culture, too, and about your place in it, meaning how much you are a part of it, but how much you might hate it, or resent it, or feel "I should've gotten out of it." She's almost -- it's like twisting the knife doubly, because she's like, ah, you little losers. You didn't even get out. You didn't even try, or something. I mean, like, just that conflicted ambiguity, moral ambiguity we have towards our own upbringings and our cultures that sometimes hurts, you know?

[Crystal] -- I definitely felt like a lot of those deaths, particularly before, were kind of distillations of, like, larger things that were happening too, you know, and how, like, they -- you know, like, maybe the fact -- like, Ricky at the beginning. He was killed, beaten up by a bunch of white cowboys, right?

[Frank] Scapegoated.

[Crystal] Lewis -- yes -- was kind of, like, sniped, I think also by a white man. I could be wrong.

[Frank] Like, the cop, or the sheriff, or whatever.

[Crystal] Yes, and then the fact that, like, the way the Gabe-Cassidy thing ultimately plays out.

[Frank] All right, just for the moment, I was -- I found Cassidy -- I found that so, so --

[Crystal] It was so upsetting.

[Frank] -- exactly, I found it so sad, and so --

[Crystal] Yes.

[Frank] -- so poignant, because they both think that Cassidy has killed Gabe's kid, Denorah.

[Crystal] Yes.

[Frank] But, like you alluded to, he really shot Nathan, but they didn't know that. Gabe basically was, like, devastated beyond belief. Like, you killed my kid, and he starts beating him. And I think with a can.

[Crystal] Yep, like a thermos.

[Frank] A thermos, and then at one point, they're talking or thinking. Cassidy picks up the thermos and hands it back to him, like finish me off.

[Crystal] Yes.

[Frank] Like, better to -- because I deserve it. And it's -- your face is so sweet right now.

[Crystal] Oh, it's so upsetting. I'm almost crying. I almost want to cry.

[Frank] I know, like, you look like you are, which is always poignant when someone tries to hold back emotion. But, like, you said that too, or I said it -- oh, I said it. The ambiguity of your own culture, like almost this self-hate. Like, kill me. Kill me, because I don't deserve it. I did the worst -- oh, you are crying, sweetheart. I know, but that was very poignant, and it's a horror book. But yet, it was so terribly sad. Oh [laughter].

[Crystal] I think it was hard to see the complete, like, self-destruction that was happening.

[Frank] Oh, see, the best horror, like that, I think, does do that. I mean, sometimes there's fun horror, sure, but, like, literary aspect of this -- horror means something's often than what it does on the surface. Like, the brutality of it is sometimes very, very human, and almost matches emotion, obviously, rather than just the explicit details of gore and all that. There's a direct connection to our emotions, meaning this violence translates to pure emotion. So, like, the Cassidy -- giving him the thermos to finish him off is also about guilt, and about love, about love of his friend, and also incredible, like, I deserve this, because I killed your only kid. And -- precedence over my own life.

[Crystal] I will say, too, that -- oh, sorry, I kicked the microphone. I think that's what makes it really effective, too, because ultimately, the elk-head woman was not -- well, except for the dogs, which, again, is terrible. But, like, the elk-head woman was not -- like, her hand was not, like, actually holding the knife, or holding the thermos, right? She was turning these people against each other, and you -- I think that's the horrifying part of it, too, like the scenes where the dogs get trampled. You don't really see that, but what you see --

[Frank] Oh, right, it was the dogs that got trampled by the horse, not Nathan.

[Crystal] -- no, yes, yes.

[Frank] Okay. Okay.

[Crystal] But what you see is that kind of slow escalation, where, you know, maybe her hand is in kind of in it in some way, but the way things slowly escalate, because the dogs get trampled, right? And then Gabe finds the dog, and one is still breathing, but obviously, he's not going to make it, so kills that dog. But then, the way the scene is set, Cassidy thinks that Gabe has killed all of his dogs, for whatever reason, and then that causes them to fight, which escalates in these different kinds of ways, and then just leads to their complete, like, self-destruction, and of the people that they love, potentially, too. Although Denorah does make it.

[Frank] Yeah. She's actually -- the elk-head woman -- obviously, this is something I didn't even think of clearly, is that she doesn't kill any of them directly.

[Crystal] No.

[Frank] Like, you just said -- you just put it perfectly, and that is a perfect way of saying she's representative of this sort of cultural guilt, cultural anxiety, cultural inferiority complex. I mean that she just has to sort of be a presence that can set in motion all this violence, and all this -- she just -- she could let them just destroy themselves. And that's why -- and that's why it's important to read the last x amount of pages to see Denorah survive that literal face-off with cultural grief, you know? So interesting. I mean, this whole cultural aspect -- like, some points of, like, definitely have a personality that was like, well, you know, they always say cultural grief, and cultural anxiety. And, like, you can't get away -- I'm like, what does that mean? Like, I feel like I got away from mine. Like, I don't even have a sympathy towards my background, and then, you really think about it in specifics. And I was like, you still, at this age, Frank, hear your mom's voice saying you can't have the same thing for dinner two nights in a row. You know what I mean? Like, something as tiny as that, I sometimes will be like, yeah, I want macaroni and cheese again. I'm like, well, you had it last night. You really can't -- I'm like, wait, that's my mother [laughter]. And, like -- and I still hear the voice, but it's like -- so just imagine, like, other things. Of course you can't run away a lot of ways from your people, your community, you know, the aspirations, the morals of that community. It's always a part of you, and you're either embracing it, reacting against it, rejecting it, but you're still tussling with it, you know?

[Crystal] Mm-hmm, yeah, for sure.

[Frank] So I appreciate that in this book, even if a lot of the details of reservation life were just not as impactful to me. Like, you sit -- your emotion, Crystal, alone, is just the --

[Crystal] Why I don't like to read horror [laughter].

[Frank] -- I know the impact --

[Crystal] I get upset.

[Frank] -- the impact of just reading good writing.

[Crystal] Yeah, I agree with that, for sure.

[Frank] You know, he certainly got you in that way.

[Crystal] Oh, he got me good, got me good.

[Frank] Oh, I did not expect this moment of emotion. Your tears are washing away all your past sins, which I hope -- which I won't bring up again.

[Crystal] Oh, no, every episode, we must bring it up.

[Frank] No, you just -- your pure emotion just washed it away.

[Crystal] I did really like this book. It was for sure a challenging book in a lot of ways, challenging still where, like, I still need to, like, think about a lot of the stuff, because I don't think everything is certainly, like, not clear to me, but -- and also scary [laughter]. Like, that -- whoever said it was very psychological disturbing was 100% correct. It is, but very well done, I think.

[Frank] Well, when you're in it, like, it's almost like pulse-pounding. Also, that noir voice, like I said before, sort of drives forward, and you miss some details, because you're not in the culture. Then it's okay, because you're sort of being transported by this sort of, like, hot rod of energy.

[Crystal] Okay [laughter]. The hot rod of energy [laughter]?

[Frank] The blog post -- hot rod of energy, says Frank. No, I lost it.

[Crystal] What a way to describe this book [laughter].

[Frank] Oh, dear.

[Crystal] But you know what? Thinking back about what -- your comparison to the book "Psycho," where, like, I think "Psycho" is very different in the sense that, like, it doesn't really show a lot of the death or whatever. It kind of -- you know, you see the things around it, right? Whereas this one actually does really present that to you, but I think both do a very good job of, like, keeping you on this high wire of, like, tension or whatever, and I feel like it's done very effectively. Because for me, like, "Psycho," if you think about it, again, it's not really that gory, but the way the scenes kind of ramp up, you just feel so tense the entire time. And then, when something actually does happen, it just is -- freaks you out.

[Frank] I mean, you realize that terror or horror as a feeling has so many emotional components to it. Because, like, actually there's a great line in the book, in "The Only Good Indians," where, when they're killing -- the four of them are killing the elk, there's this definition of terror, that is joy plus surprise equals terror. And I was like, how could joy in any way be equated with terror? And it could almost be that thing we don't want to quite admit about ourselves as humans, that there is joy in -- this is a terrible thing to say, but joy in violence, or in the potential for violence, that we are -- you know, the whole -- like you said before, the blood lust of them killing the elk. It's like, they weren't bad kids, but there was, like, definitely a human something about going for something, and attacking it, and triumphing over it, and killing it. I mean, it's terrible, terrible, terrible, I mean, and more to discuss, but, like, that sort of exhilaration, which you could call joy. But the surprise is when something intrudes on that joy sharply. I mean, think about, like, you're happy, and singing, and, like, you have your headphones, and then your roommate, like, opens the door quickly. And you're surprised, and you go, "Oh, don't do that." So it's like joy plus surprise -- is like terror. That was interesting to contemplate, sort of like what you said about you haven't -- there's so much here that you haven't thought about it all. Like, just that concept stuck in my head, because I was like, I want to make sense of this. And I am always interested in analyzing something that might superficially seem like, well, joy can't be equated with terror. And of course, I can't ever be -- feel exhilaration over the potential for violence. That's just terrible, and it is terrible, but is it human? Is it a human impulse? So that's not the best note to end on, but hey.

[Crystal] No, I was going to say, I think, you know, it's interesting. Like, that particular part of it is the part that you're fixated on. The part that -- like, I think it was, like, one line. I'm not going to be able to find it. There was something about, like, the memory of the herd, maybe, like, moving through the elk, and, like, maybe into the calf or something. I don't know. There was, like, one line about memory that was very interesting, and that's something that I think I want to go back and kind of revisit and think about that some more. Because, again, I feel like I've definitely missed some bigger things that are happening in this book, because I was so fixated on, like --

[Frank] Yeah, surviving the horror.

[Crystal] -- yes, yes, on the -- maybe, like, the individual story, and I think there's so much more about, like, the bigger context that is kind of alluded to here, which I think is really great.

[Frank] I mean, punishingly, I re-read the -- when it turned, because I was -- just like the obsession with, you know, Marion Crane in "Psycho" stepping into the shower. Like, you watch that moment over and over, but, like, oh, my God, here he comes. Like, I re-read when it turns for Lewis, and he calls Shaney and his wife, because I wanted to see it again and feel it again, maybe relive it again, sort of what I just said. And the writing -- I was like, oh, my God, I missed that detail. Oh, of course. Like, it was suddenly making a lot more sense.

[Crystal] Okay, I should really [laughter] --

[Frank] Little detail about the teeth, and --

[Crystal] -- I know. I think that's the part that -- because he --

[Frank] -- I can't do this anymore [laughter].

[Crystal] -- was so desperate to kind of like, I think, prove that it was the elk-head woman, and that it was ivory, that he was checking the teeth. And then, the stuff that he was doing, you're just like, you are, like, no longer yourself. Because this is the wife that you -- I mean, I don't know, but poor Peta. Poor, like --

[Frank] I know. Well, yeah, I know.

[Crystal] -- yes, yeah.

[Frank] Because you're following Lewis's point of view, it's true.

[Crystal] It's very -- it's so unsettling, yes.

[Frank] Steven Graham Jones -- his new book, I saw it in the bookstore, was "My Heart is a Chainsaw."

[Crystal] This is scary.

[Frank] Which is sort of about -- yeah, eh always writes some -- well, he flips between genres apparently, but I think it's, like, some homage to '80s horror or something. But just the title and the possible concept, I was like, oh, I have to read that. Maybe I will down the road, and I can tell you about it.

[Crystal] Okay, you can tell me about it.

[Frank] You don't have to read it.

[Crystal] You know what? I'll look up the Wikipedia entry, and I'll just read the summary there. Because that's what I do with the Stephen King books, all the scary books. That's my version of reading them.

[Frank] Yeah, you just can't quite read it, but you can sort of, with one eye open, read the Wikipedia.

[Crystal] Yeah, I just -- I want to know what happens. I just don't want all the details, and all the, like --

[Frank] Apparently you got the details.

[Crystal] -- so many details, and honestly, when I was reading that first Lewis scene, I was in complete disbelief. I was like, this is definitely not happening. I guess this is happening.

[Frank] I know.

[Crystal] It was a roller coaster.

[Frank] Right, because I read it -- I -- like I said, tricked, but fell for it, got into it. I was literally, after that whole scene, the double murder really of Lewis's -- Lewis killing them, I was sort of like -- like --

[Crystal] Yes [laughter].

[Frank] -- like, open-mouthed, sort of like, ah-ha. Like, I did the cliche, like -- as I was reading it. I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe he's doing this.

[Crystal] Yes.

[Frank] And then you realize you're in it, and I was like, ugh.

[Crystal] I definitely --

[Frank] Jones, I can't believe he --

[Crystal] -- I definitely had the moment where I would, like -- I had to wish somebody was reading that book at the same scene at the same time, so I could just like -- do you see what this is -- like, what's happening here, to share that experience. Instead, it was me. Just, like, my jaw dropped in the same way.

[Frank] -- I wonder what it was like in audio book. I heard it's read by a Blackfeet, Native American, the audio. That must be intense.

[Crystal] It'd be, like, extra disturbing, yeah.

[Frank] Probably, hearing it in your head. Okay, all right. Okay, well, we ran the gamut of emotions here. We certainly did.

[Crystal] Oh, yes.

[Frank] Who'd have thunk a horror book, just a horror book, by a great writer apparently, Steven Graham Jones? Thank you, Crystal, for going on this journey with me.

[Crystal] Oh, you're welcome.

[Frank] Here comes your ASMR nonsense.

[Crystal] Oh, man. I'm emotionally exhausted. I'm like, should I even do this? But all right.

[Frank] No, maybe not.

[Crystal] Prepared something --

[Frank] As if. All right.

[Crystal] -- maybe this will be relaxing, after we've gone on this --

[Frank] Is that a comb?

[Crystal] -- no.

[Frank] Does it have teeth?

[Crystal] No.

[Frank] I mean, everything is a finger against the plastic.

[Crystal] I feel like that's your way of getting out of it. If you just keep guessing it's a finger tapping against something, you'll always be correct.

[Frank] I mean, does it have ridges? Oh, book. It's pages.

[Crystal] Yes, kind of. So it's just a stack of bookmarks.

[Frank] Oh. Similar to pages. Oh.

[Crystal] Yes, trying to go for something a little bit library centric. These are, like, bookmarks.

[Frank] Hold on. Oh, hey, Mark [assumed spelling]. Hey, oh, I guess we have to go [laughter].

[Crystal] Okay.

[Frank] All right, thank you.

[Crystal] Bye.

[Frank] Goodbye.

[Crystal] Goodbye.

[Narrator] Thanks for listening to The Librarian Is In, a podcast by The New York Public Library. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcast or Google Play or send us an e-mail at podcasts@nypl.org. For more information about the New York Public Library, please visit nypl.org. We are produced by Christine Farrell. Your hosts are Frank Collerius and Crystal Chen.