The Only Good Indians

The Only Good Indians

Company type	Novel
Industry	Literature
Founded	July 14, 2020 (2020-07-14)
Founder	Stephen Graham Jones
Products	Horror novel

The Only Good Indians is a horror novel released in 2020 by Stephen Graham Jones, composed while he stayed in a rented Colorado residence. The book was initially issued on July 14, 2020, through Saga Press and Titan Books.

The narrative centers on four individuals from the Blackfeet Nation, with half having left their reservation. Ten years prior, they hunted elk in the elders’ area of the reservation and inadvertently killed a pregnant elk along with its unborn calf. Following this event, they become targets of the elk’s vengeful spirit. After their demise, the spirit’s wrath shifts to Denorah, the daughter of one of the men, compelling her to confront a history she was not part of. The novel explores themes such as cultural identity, violence, and femininity.

Plot

Ricky, a man from the Blackfeet, exits a bar and notices an elk causing damage to several parked cars by stumbling into them. White patrons from the bar catch Ricky near the wrecked vehicles and chase him into an open field where he perceives glowing elk eyes reflected around him. Ricky is subsequently beaten to death.

Lewis, Ricky’s childhood companion, has relocated off the reservation and married Peta, a white woman. One evening, while repairing a ceiling fan light, Lewis sees an apparition of a dead elk on the floor and nearly falls but is saved by Peta. Lewis then recounts to Peta and his colleague Shaney, a woman from the Crow, an incident from his youth when he, Ricky, Gabe, and Cass illegally hunted elk in the elders’ section of their reservation. Troubled by a wounded pregnant elk, Lewis shoots it again, buries the fetus, and vows to dedicate all of the mother elk’s meat to the elders. Their hunt is interrupted by a game warden who forces them to dispose of the elk carcass.

Later, Lewis and Peta’s dog is found hanging but still alive; it is subsequently stomped to death with boots taken from their garage. Convinced that the elk spirit has returned for vengeance, Lewis suspects Shaney and orchestrates her death in a fabricated motorcycle accident. When he returns home, he startles Peta as she works on the fan light; she falls fatally. Lewis extracts teeth from both women in an attempt to prove they are connected to elk and removes an elk calf from Peta’s body. He flees toward the reservation but is killed during a manhunt. The elk spirit Po'noka is revealed as genuine, driven by revenge against the friends; she rapidly assumes human form and hitchhikes back toward the reservation.

Cass and Gabe remain on the reservation preparing for a sweat lodge ceremony hosted by Cass. Gabe, an alcoholic who is often absent as a father, visits his daughter Denorah before her basketball game and loses a bet on her free throws. During the sweat lodge ceremony with Nathan Yellow Tail (son of local officer Victor Yellow Tail), Victor is attacked by the elk spirit. Gabe finds Cass’ dogs severely beaten outside; he euthanizes one dog out of mercy but conceals this from Cass. Returning with Cass’ hidden money thermos prompts Cass to suspect theft and confront Gabe. Their altercation results in Cass accidentally killing his girlfriend Jo who was hiding under his truck. When Cass tries to shoot Gabe, he instead wounds Denorah; consumed by guilt, Gabe beats Cass to death. Gabe then discovers that Cass shot Nathan. The elk spirit offers to spare Denorah if Gabe takes his own life; after he complies, she reveals her true intention is to kill Denorah anyway since she represents Gabe’s calf.

Denorah encounters the elk-headed woman disguised as Shaney after winning her basketball game earnings. The spirit challenges Denorah to play basketball before revealing her actual form—a woman with an elk head—and chases Denorah across the snowy reservation landscape. Denorah finds injured Nathan and sends him to alert her stepfather Denny, who serves as game warden and once interrupted her father’s hunt. Exhausted at last, Denorah reaches the site where the historic elk killing occurred. The spirit pauses there to give birth to a living calf where Lewis had buried it earlier. Denny arrives intending to kill both but Denorah stops him, breaking the cycle as the elk spirit sheds her human guise and returns with her calf into the wilderness.

Blackfeet heritage

Stephen Graham Jones, who belongs to the Blackfeet Nation, uses his novel to pay tribute to Blackfeet traditions, life on the reservation, and challenges such as departing from the reservation, interracial relationships, representation in sports, and struggles with addiction. Two key motifs are depicted on the cover: the novel’s title and the elk.

Title significance

The book’s title alludes to the damaging expression “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” originally coined by General Philip Sheridan in the 1860s. Through his narrative, Jones continues to address this offensive phrase and its enduring effects on Native communities.

Elk symbolism

The elk, esteemed by tribes including the Shawnee, Cree, and Lakota, represents endurance and guardianship within Indigenous oral traditions. In the story, the elk serves dual roles as both an instructor and an enforcer of justice for the characters’ deeds.

Ecological anxieties

Carlos Tkacz classifies the novel within ecohorror, exploring apprehensions about environmental degradation. Jones weaves together ecological themes with historical violence inflicted upon Indigenous peoples, mirroring contemporary environmental concerns.

Violence and Indigenous womanhood

The narrative explores themes of womanhood and violence directed at Indigenous women. The elk-headed woman, who suffers the loss of her calf during a pivotal elk death scene, inhabits a human woman’s form throughout the latter half of the novel. The removal of her calf parallels Lewis’s act of killing Peta and extracting the elk calf from her body.

Denorah’s character arc aligns with the horror archetype known as the "final girl."

Additionally, the elk embodies the legendary Deer Woman, a figure in various Indigenous mythologies symbolizing fertility or luring men to their demise through seduction.

Development

Jones disclosed that The Only Good Indians began taking shape while he and his spouse were renting a house in Gunbarrel, Colorado. The idea may also stem from a childhood episode when his uncle stopped him from hunting a mother grizzly bear.

The storyline revolves around a tragic elk hunt that occurred years prior. Drawing on his own experiences hunting on reservation territories since age twelve, Jones constructed an authentic and chilling tale. A significant inspiration came after relocating from West Texas to Colorado; he found himself distributing leftover frozen elk meat door-to-door, troubled by not fully honoring the animal’s use as he had intended.

Jones described this work as distinct from his prior writings, noting it "arrived in three parts." He identified writing about hunting as particularly challenging: "I can fake it with cars and people, but I have to get it right for hunters.”

Release

The Only Good Indians was released in hardcover and digital formats on July 14, 2020, by Saga Press. An audiobook version narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett was published simultaneously by Simon & Schuster Audio. The UK edition was issued by Titan Books on July 21, 2020.

Reception

The novel attracted reviews from publications such as The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles Times remarked that it "struggles to blend horror elements with deep character exploration," making it appealing to both genre enthusiasts and literary readers. NPR lauded Jones as "one of today’s finest writers regardless of genre," emphasizing the book’s thoughtful portrayal of Native American experiences and tensions between tradition and modern life.

Accolades

Year	Award	Category	Outcome
2020	Bram Stoker Award	Novel	Template:Won
	Goodreads Choice Award	Horror	Template:Sho
	Los Angeles Times Book Prize	Ray Bradbury Prize	Template:Won
	Shirley Jackson Award	Novel	Template:Won
2021	Alex Awards	—	Template:Won
	Audie Awards	Thriller/Suspense	Template:Sho
	British Fantasy Award	Horror Novel	Template:Sho
	Dragon Awards	Horror Novel	Template:Sho
	Ignyte Awards	Adult Novel	Template:Sho
	Locus Award	Horror Novel	Template:Sho
	World Fantasy Award	Novel	Template:Sho