45 pages • 1 hour read
Night of the Living Rez
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Overview
Night of the Living Rez, a linked short story collection by writer and academic Morgan Talty, follows the life of a young Indigenous man growing up and trying to find a place for himself on the Penobscot Nation’s reservation. As a citizen of the Penobscot Nation, Talty uses his identity to inform this collection’s gritty, lived-in portrayals of substance abuse, colonial trauma, and families coming together in the face of hardship. Night of the Living Rez, published in 2022, won the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the New England Book Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Story Collection, and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction.
This guide refers to the Tin House paperback edition of Night of the Living Rez published in 2022.
Content Warning: This guide discusses substance abuse, violence, racism, miscarriage, sexual assault, death of a child, death of the elderly, and animal death.
Plot Summary
Night of the Living Rez features interconnected stories about the same group of characters. David, later called Dee, is the first-person narrator of all these stories. Structurally, the collection oscillates between Dee- and David-narrated stories, giving a kaleidoscopic view of a life spent on the reservation.
In “Burn,” Dee walks home after a failed attempt at acquiring marijuana and finds his friend Unlock all 45 pages of this Study Guide Plus, gain access to 8,900+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
