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Book: “Off the Reservation” by Stephen Graham Jones
Publishing Info: S&S/Saga Press, October 2026
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: A ragtag group of activists sets out to repatriate the bones of a Blackfeet boy taken to the infamous Carlisle Indian Industrial School in author Stephen Graham Jones’s return to the Blackfeet reservation of his award-winning New York Times bestsellers The Only Good Indians and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.
Five years have passed since the massacre on the Blackfeet reservation in Stephen Graham Jones’s breakout bestseller The Only Good Indians. Nathan Yellow Tail, one of the survivors of the revenge murders, finds himself in the hospital after a terrible accident that should’ve killed him and that nearly killed his best friend, Sebby, who is hanging on to life in a room a few doors down.
Nate’s life is out of balance, so when he is given the chance to reset his life, and maybe save Sebby in the process, Nate steps up, again. This time it’s into a camper van that is almost as run down as his broken body, filled with three older Blackfeet, to find the bones of the lone Blackfeet boy who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School—where many Indigenous children were abused—and repatriate this boy home. The problem is, when they get the bones, something terrible has escaped with them.
By turns terrifying and deeply moving, Off the Reservation is a haunting American Indian novel of survival, reckoning, and redemption, shining light on the dark corners of this country’s history while also showing the desperate choices people make when they’re put up against a wall.
Review: Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this novel!
I feel like it has been a bit since Stephen Graham Jones released a horror novel in October, which usually means they don’t get covered in my Horrorpalooza festival. So how lucky is it that his newest book, “Off the Reservation”, is finally here, and that it has been released during this most wonderful and holy of months, October! Jones has been a long time favorite of mine, and I’m definitely pleased that I had a new book of his for the Halloween season. And no surprises here, it’s great!
Jones has so much intention and detail to all of his books, and that was incredibly clear here as we start to unwind this new story set within the same storyline as “The Only Good Indians”. It’s referred to as a sequel but I would say that it is more of a companion piece, as while Nate Yellow Tail is definitely in “The Only Good Indians” (as he is present at the climactic scenes/massacre of that book), you need not read it to be able to understand all that is going on. And the story of Nate being recruited to help reclaim and return the remains of a murdered Blackfeet boy from the Carlisle Indian School back to his ancestral home in Montana takes time and details to set up before it goes into full wild out mode with possession horror. Jones wants to make sure that all of the important information is there so that when it all starts to come together, sometimes at breakneck speed, it has all been laid out so the reader can say ‘oh yes!’ as they plunge through the narrative. And it’s a good thing too, because as we get to know Nate’s compatriots, be it nurse Seine Plenty Wolf who met Nate whilst he was in the hospital and then brought him in for this mission, or mysterious driver Christian, or long mourning widow Mooch (who has lost her entire family), their back stories become incredibly important as everything starts to fall apart. The characterizations are well done and the back stories all inform what is to come.
In terms of the horror, we all know I do really like it when authors tweak and mess with the idea of ‘possession’, and Jones brings his own perspectives to the sub-genre that feel unique and pertinent for the themes at hand with Indigenous themes and history. There are a lot of creepy and really intense moments with this, running the gamut of emotions from scary to funny to heart-rendering. And it is once again the realities of the history of the injustices that the United States Government has committed towards Indigenous people that really drive the horror in this book. For God’s sake, the main plot is about repatriating the bones of a murdered child back to their ancestral land from the government institution that caused their death all in the name of ‘assimilation’ (but what was in actuality state sanctioned violent racism as well as cultural genocide ON TOP OF ACTUAL GENOCIDE). It has beats that absolutely devastated me, and between the overt plot points and the references to other historical moments in time (Little Big Horn, DAPL), the horrors do not stay confined to a mere supernatural tether, and that makes it all the more powerful and harrowing.
“Off the Reservation” is another good read from one of the most important horror voices of the present, and it continues a streak of well done stories that will stick with a reader after the last page has been turned.
Rating 9: Another visceral and haunting horror story from Jones, who brings in a unique take on possession and condemns, once again and rightfully, the United States and its treatment of Indigenous people, specifically with the boarding school system.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Off the Reservation” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror to Look Forward to in 2026”.
