Mean Spirit

by Linda Hogan

Overview

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE * Named a Best Mystery and Thriller Book of all Time by Time

A haunting epic following a Native American government official who investigates the murder of Grace Blanket: an Osage woman who was once the richest person in her territory until the greed of white men led to her death and a future of uncertainty for her family.

When rivers of oil are discovered beneath the land belonging to the Osage tribe during the Oklahoma oil boom, Grace Blanket becomes the wealthiest person in the territory. Tragically, she is murdered at the hands of greedy men, leaving her daughter Nola orphaned. After the Graycloud family takes Nola in, they too begin dying mysteriously. Though they send letters to Washington DC begging for help, the family continues to slowly disappear until Native American government official Stace Red Hawk ventures west to investigate the terrors plaguing the Osage tribe.

Stace is not only able to uncover the rampant fraud, intimidation, and murder that led to the deaths of Grace Blanket and the Greycloud family, but also finds something truly extraordinary—a realization of his deepest self and an abundance of love and appreciation for his native people and their brave past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501112454
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	01/10/2015
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	27,619
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Linda Hogan is a Chickasaw poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and activist. She is the author of Dwellings, The Book of Medicines, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; the American Book Award winner Seeing Through the Sun; and Mean Spirit, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has been the recipient of several awards, including an NEA Fellowship, a Minnesota Arts Board grant, a Lannan Award, and Guggenheim Fellowship. She was also inducted into the Chickasaw Hall of Fame and served as a Writer in Residence for the Chickasaw Nation.

Editorial Reviews

"Hogan’s created empathy. She carves a vast tragedy down to a size and shape that will fit into a human heart." —Barbara Kingsolver, Los Angeles Times

“A twisty exploration of not only the darkest parts of the human heart, but also the havoc wreaked by corrupt men and a corrupt nation. Tackling the issue of displacement with precision and insight, Hogan’s storytelling is remarkable, powerful, and essentially human.” —Cady Lang, Time

“The strong, vibrant heart of a people betrayed beats throughout Linda Hogan's magical, brooding and richly textured novel. Mean Spirit is about the cultural disintegration of the Osage Indian tribe as the white world intrudes... Powerful.” —Chris Patsilelis, The Washington Post

"Mean Spirit is a story rooted both in truth and mystery, and Linda Hogan has written it beautifully.” —Louise Erdrich, author of The Night Watchman

"This is a powerful, beautiful book. Linda Hogan gives us a true and vivid look at part of a great American tragedy. I wish everyone would read Mean Spirit and begin to understand." —Tony Hillerman, author of the Leaphorn and Chee series

"Linda Hogan's Mean Spirit is a marvel. It is interesting to see how gracefully she, like a number of Native American poets—Momaday, Erdrich, Welch, Silko—has made a very natural move from poetry to the novel. The prose in Mean Spirit is exquisite, the narrative fine, if enraging. This is certainly an auspicious debut." —Jim Harrison, author of The Big Seven

"Mean Spirit is a beautiful and elegiac story, a true American Tragedy, a paradise lost. I loved it, even while it broke my heart." —William Kittredge, author of The Willow Field

From the Publisher

Set in Oklahoma during the oil boom of the early 1920s, this brooding and profoundly moving first novel focuses on two doomed Osage Indian families, the Blankets and the Grayclouds. The brutal murder of Grace Blanket, owner of oil-rich land, witnessed in horror by her young daughter Nola and Nola's friend Rena Graycloud, is only the first of a series of violent events designed to coerce the tribes and put their lands into the hands of the oil barons. Justice is slow and ambiguous. When Stace Red Hawk, a policeman with the U.S. Bureau of Investigation, finds his inquiries blocked and his efforts frustrated by evasive and corrupt federal officials, he travels from Washington, D.C., to Oklahoma to investigate firsthand. Soon, like many of the Indian families depicted here, Stace is torn between the glitter of 20th-century life and the pull of sacred traditions. Hogan, a poet, professor and member of the Chickasaw tribe, mines a rich vein of Indian customs and rituals, and approaches her characters with reverence, bringing them to life with quick, spare phrases. Her absorbing novel pays elegiac tribute to the slow and irrevocable breakup of centuries of culture. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In her debut as a novelist, poet and essayist Hogan chronicles the effects of the 1920s Oklahoma oil boom on two Native American families, people entirely unprepared for the consequences of a sudden and unprecedented influx of wealth. Herself a member of the Oklahoma Chickasaw tribe, Hogan tells the story of heretofore worthless land allotted to Indians in the early years of the 20th century. Wells originally drilled for water bring forth only ``the thick black fluid that had no use at all for growing corn or tomatoes,'' and ``the Barren Land'' is transformed virtually overnight into ``the Baron Land.'' Writing in a spare, compact style, Hogan sketches the bewilderment, hope, greed, and ultimate tragedy brought on by sudden (mis)fortune in this fine, sad first novel. Recommended.-- Richard Churchill, Univ. of Baltimore

Library Journal

YA-- An intense, haunting tale of the Osage Indians in the 1920s. The mystery begins when Nora Blanket, a Native American, witnesses her mother's murder. This killing is only the first of many as white men try to steal the Indians' oil-rich land and personal fortunes. The Osage try to protect themselves and their way of life, but the situation becomes hopeless, especially when the sheriff and government investigators are suspected of participating in the murders. YAs will enjoy the suspense and unexpected twists of the story line, but they will also find it thought-provoking and unsettling. Through this tribe, readers experience the injustice inherent in cultural prejudice as they did in Griffin's Black Like Me (NAL, 1961), and they confront government corruption firsthand. The moving descriptions of Indian values highlight current environmental concerns. A valuable supplement to social-studies classes.-- Lynda Voyles, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA

School Library Journal