Going into this, I had no idea it was a sequel, a part two, revenge of something you didn’t quite kill the first time around. It is and it isn’t. Really, it’s a continuation. If you haven’t read The Only Good Indians—I mean, what planet are you on?—it’s okay, you can still enjoy the hell out of this, it works perfectly as a standalone. If you have read The Only Good Indians, though, not only are there easter eggs galore, but you’ll find yourself at a crossroads of sorts, asking, “Can a part two be better than the original?” Remember Aliens? T-2? That second Godfather movie? Enough said, even though that’s like comparing a sunrise to a sunset. What I’ve found is, your favorite SGJ novel is always going to be the one you’re reading right now.
The bones of The Only Good Indians are here, kind of a blueprint, really, but the skin and eyes and mouth are totally new. We begin with theft, a trespass, to be exact, because you need a trespass to get that revenge boulder rolling down the hill, flattening everyone in its path. Two friends looking down a slope, scoping their prey, an A-frame cabin probably owned by some rich assholes. Sound familiar? Be careful who you steal from, though. There’s stealing, as in ‘thou shalt not,’ capital S, then there’s stealing like you just took too many tootsie rolls from that glass jar at the bank. What Nate and Sebby do? It’s more the tootsie roll thing, in my opinion, but they just had to smash the toilet, didn’t they. Mini buck and doe tried to warn them. Then SMASH! There’s an accident.
Hospital time. Nate’s alive and Seb’s hanging on by a shoelace. Meet Nurse Seine, the stealer of shiny stories, the magpie. Great lines here: ‘Half the stories he traded her for smokes were about his dead father. It was his main currency, was all he had to draw on for the rest of his life.’ And, ‘the horses didn’t ask for any of this.’ SGJ’s been in the hospital, for sure, the grippy socks (I always keep them) and disposable razors and rooms are spot-on, felt a bit like a rehab center. Now comes the vow, the blood pact, dull scissor-drilled dots across the forearm like a red constellation, an arrow. So much heart in this scene. Gave Exorcist 3 vibes when a dinosaur—a T. Rex, specifically—shows up. Remember those flash newspaper headlines from The Only Good Indians? They’re neon signs now, pay attention.
Time to make good on that vow of pulling Sebby out of his coma, time for a road trip! You need wheels, though, and Mooch Lomas (aside from Nate, my favorite character) has a running RV, a Sundancer. For the rest of this journey, we’re going to be in this RV, a complete world unto itself, a ‘kaleidoscope being shaken fast and hard.’ Christian’s driving, cracked rearview or not, removable studded tongue locked and loaded, Mooch is sucking down Icees, holding that ice pick, waiting for her son to land that big jump—“My husband’s in that movie!”—and Seine is playing nurse, just trying to find that boy’s bones and set everything right again. She has no idea how much superglue is in that RV. Remember that motorcycle from The Only Good Indians? the one that loved long hair? It’s kind of back again, in dirt-bike form, packed in the back of the RV like a secret passenger.
The description of that Love’s, when you really really have to pee, is perfect, and Nate, well, he kind of has a problem with pee. You’ll see. All I know is, I kept saying to him, “Man, please, just let it rip!” Buck and Doe show up again, the little people, in a diorama, and we get a great line here: “…even if she had ever been a mother, still, no arm is strong enough to stop a boy from flying away if he wants to fly away.”
There’s a chapter with a pool match, a game of nine-ball that I wanted to last as long as that game of basketball from The Only Good Indians, but alas, it didn’t. That’s just me, though. But reading, “You don’t call in nine-ball,” had me through the roof. Those two guys playing? I felt like they were tricksters, like they meant something other than what they were saying, and I’m pretty sure Doe shows up here, thick black eyeliner and all.
Remember that chapter in The Only Good Indians that switches everything up? That 40% mark where you think it’s second person but it’s really dramatic monologue? Hindsight is that chapter here, and man, it’s all high speed and sixth gear and no looking back from there. That sixth gear, alternately down-shifting with humor, POV switch (does that deftly mid-chapter sometimes), the subjunctive, and dipping into character development, it’s totally SGJ territory, and nobody does it better. He puts you in that RV. You have to look.
We pick up another passenger: The Road King; quick nod to Jason and the Argonauts. And little by little, the dominos start falling. I’m skirting spoilers here, so I’ll just say: this is the best set of characters I’ve encountered in a while. The big bad, it’s all of them, sure, but it’s also none of them. Each one is a hero in their own eyes, totally gray territory, and they’re so tragic at times. From Nate’s perspective: “It was like everything was working against him: a cat-lady with an ice pick for a magic wand, a driver who dressed like a priest but couldn’t preach, and a cousin who thought she was a weasel.” And in true dramatic fashion, they all either slowly make their way off the stage, or are ruthlessly pushed. Another great line here: “It was probably in a wagon someone else was dragging, so it would always be ahead of him. Maybe that’s all death was: people pulling things with them, unable to ever let them go.”
Off the Reservation is a bonfire some kid and his grandmother built to pull a lost hunter in, a lit cigarette set horizontally in your hand, passed over to a friend you’d do anything for. It’s two thumbs up, way up, higher than a flagpole standing on a pile of bones. It’ll rip your chest open, superglue it back together, rip it open again, then suture you up with boot laces. And that bullet thing at the end? Chef’s kiss, man. “Sturrrrgis!”