Even As We Breathe

Even As We Breathe is the first novel by Cherokee author, journalist, and academic Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, who is a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Set in western North Carolina in 1942, the narrative is a coming-of-age story about Cowney Sequoyah Jr., an orphaned 19-year-old Cherokee boy who takes a summer job at Asheville’s storied Grove Park Inn. Over the tumultuous summer, Cowney experiences an off-again, on-again relationship with a Cherokee girl also working at the inn and suffers the deaths of the two close relatives who raised him. Upon finding a piece of bare bone, Cowney becomes a suspect in the disappearance of a little girl. The events and relationships of the summer challenge Cowney’s desire to flee from his heritage and the reservation in Cherokee, North Carolina.

The novel won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award in 2021. NPR named it one of the best books of 2020, and it was a finalist for the Weatherford Award in 2020. This guide references the hardcover 2020 edition published by the University of Kentucky Press.

Content Warning: This guide contains mentions of death by suicide and child death. Readers will encounter the occasional use of expletives and racial slurs throughout the narrative.