Sacred Folks: Stories

by Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

Overview

Sacred Folks brings it all home in the final book of Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.’s urban Native Chicago story cycle. Disciples, demons, gods, gangbangers, and the city itself all meet up to tell unforgettable tales across time and neighborhoods. Our guide through the trilogy, Teddy, is right in the thick of things, and he recounts for us parts of the path to the end and explains how and maybe why we got here and where we might go after all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826366641
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	10/01/2024
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. is the author of the Sacred trilogy, of which Sacred Smokes and Sacred City are the first two installments, and the gothic novella Pour One for the Devil. He is also the coeditor of the national bestseller Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology.

Table of Contents

Author’s Note

Wamakognaka / Creation
1. The Never Ending / Inipi
2. Go Blue / Baptism
3. No Doubt / Hanbleceya
4. GITMO / Confirmation
5. Dance Dance Dance / Wacipi
6. How I Wonder / Communion
7. O’Migra / Lowanpi
8. Three Corinthians / Confession
9. La Montaigne / Yuwipi
10. Rent Town / Anointing the Sick
11. Descendit / Hunkapi
12. Over the River / Contrition
13. Ad Inferos / Nagi Gluhapi
14. Alleys Are Two-Way Streets That Have Their Own Rules / Fabulae non sacra liturgiae
Eulogy / Last Rites

Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

I love the way Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. writes about urban Native lives in Chicago. There is something so familiar about the lives he writes about, and what he is doing with language is so new and unexpected. He writes the city beautifully.”—Tommy Orange, author of There There

“Strong trilogies don’t end, exactly. They arc up into the sky and just keep going, and those of us left here on the ground tilt our faces up to watch, and, because of books like this, we maybe find each other’s hands to hold, as well.”—Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Angel of Indian Lake

“Strong trilogies don’t end, exactly. They arc up into the sky and just keep going, and those of us left here on the ground tilt our faces up to watch, and, because of books like this, we maybe find each other’s hands to hold, as well.”—Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Angel of Indian Lake

“Not since Piri Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets have we seen such a clear snapshot of tender lives spilled onto the cold streets of a major American city. Van Alst has written a three-book urban western filled with the history of violence, drugs, poverty, and racism that Native Americans have had to face in virtually all American settings. Follow Van Alst down these ‘mean streets,’ where creation myths, ancient history, religion, and real, everyday life intersect, and where you’ll learn what it is to survive.”—Ito Romo, author of The Border Is Burning

From the Publisher