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There There meets The Night Watchman in this gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past.
Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe's Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack's reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack's estranged sister and Mitch's former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go-and what they will sacrifice-to win it all.
But when an accident claims the life of Mitch's mentor, a power broker in the reservation's political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation's descent into violence.
Thrilling and timely, Big Chief is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging-to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance. "A compelling and strong Native American novel about politics and power and how far some people will go to hold on to what they have."
-Brandon Hobson, author of National Book Award finalist Where the Dead Sit Talking JON HICKEY is a former Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University and earned his MFA from Cornell University. His short fiction has appeared in Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast Online, Virginia Quarterly Review, Meridian, and The Madison Review, among other journals and prizes. He has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and the Sewanee Writers Conference. He is an enrolled member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons. Big Chief is his debut novel.
Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe's Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack's reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack's estranged sister and Mitch's former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go-and what they will sacrifice-to win it all.
But when an accident claims the life of Mitch's mentor, a power broker in the reservation's political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation's descent into violence.
Thrilling and timely, Big Chief is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging-to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance. "A compelling and strong Native American novel about politics and power and how far some people will go to hold on to what they have."
-Brandon Hobson, author of National Book Award finalist Where the Dead Sit Talking JON HICKEY is a former Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University and earned his MFA from Cornell University. His short fiction has appeared in Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast Online, Virginia Quarterly Review, Meridian, and The Madison Review, among other journals and prizes. He has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and the Sewanee Writers Conference. He is an enrolled member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons. Big Chief is his debut novel.
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Reviews
Loss haunts this powerful story of politics, corruption, and loyalty. Narrator Shaun Taylor-Corbett continues his fine work with Indigenous authors. He performs this debut novel with just the right tone, style, and tempo. He voices the angsty Mitch Caddo with a sure sense of his conflicted life as a "fixer" for the fictional Passage Rouge Nation. An outsider with an Ivy League law degree, Caddo wo
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