The Missing Morningstar: And Other Stories

by Stacie Shannon Denetsosie

Overview

A 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Award winner

"Propulsive and complex, this is a gorgeously written debut."

—KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review)

In The Missing Morningstar and Other Stories, Stacie Shannon Denetsosie confronts long-reaching effects of settler-colonialism on Native lives in a series of gritty, wildly imaginative stories. A young Navajo man catches a ride home alongside a casket he’s sure contains his dead grandfather. A gas station clerk witnesses the kidnapping of the newly crowned Miss Northwestern Arizona. A young couple’s search for a sperm donor raises questions of blood quantum. This debut collection grapples with a complex and painful history alongside an inheritance of beauty, ceremony, and storytelling.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948814850
Publisher:	Torrey House Press
Publication date:	09/12/2023
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Stacie Shannon Denetsosie is a member of the Navajo Nation and her clans are Todích'íí'nii (Bitterwater) and born for Naakaii Dine'é (Mexican). Her work has appeared in Yellow Medicine Review, Scribendi, and Phoebe. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts and is a contributor to the Torrey House anthology Blossom as the Cliffrose: Mormon Legacies and the Beckoning Wild. She lives in Logan, Utah.

Editorial Reviews

07/03/2023

Denetsosie debuts with a bracing and poignant collection portraying the rugged lives of her Diné characters and their complex family bonds. The title story concerns the aftermath of powwow beauty queen Charmaine’s abduction. The unnamed teen narrator, who identifies as dilbáá or “masculine female,” recounts Charmaine’s exploration of her queer sexuality on the powwow circuit and the false rumors of her promiscuity with men, and describes how Charmaine’s disappearance calls up memories of a previous abduction in their community (“All we had were flashlights, Facebook shares, and ceremony”). “The Casket in the Backseat” finds a teenager named Leo haunted by the ghost of his recently deceased Grandpa Clyde, who wants to reconcile with Leo’s mother after he regularly left her as a child to visit his other family in a different town. The narrator of “Conception” elicits disapproval from her family after marrying a white man instead of her sweetheart from the reservation (“I remember the crease in my aunt’s brow as she asked if I planned to enroll my non-existent future baby into the Navajo Nation”). Some stories truncate suddenly, just as they seem to be getting off the ground, but Denetsosie soars when depicting the characters’ close relationships with one another. It’s a potent display of modern Navajo life. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

​Propulsive and complex, this is a gorgeously written debut.”

—KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review)

“The Missing Morningstar effortlessly exudes power and charm in equal measure. Denetsosie appears on the page fully formed. A feat of voice, texture, heart, and an absolute thrill to read.”

—TOMMY ORANGE, author of There There

"A stunning debut collection."

—TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS, The New York Times

“Denetsosie skillfully enlightens readers about the Diné experience, offering a deeper understanding and awareness.”
—BOOKLIST

“The poignant stories of The Missing Morningstar represent a world of people searching for love, fulfillment, and belonging.”
—FOREWORD REVIEWS

“Denetsosie debuts with a bracing and poignant collection portraying the rugged lives of her Diné characters and their complex family bonds...A potent display of modern Navajo life.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“While devouring The Missing Morningstar, I reached for my heart and exclaimed with bittersweet joy the feeling of being seen by these powerfully observed short stories that are both heartbreaking and uplifting. Stacie Denetsosie’s gorgeous short story collection plunged deep into my soul, where these strong and resilient Navajo characters will remain for a very, very long time.”

—KALI FAJARDO-ANSTINE, bestselling author of Woman of Light

“Stacie Shannon Denetsosie has given us insight and honesty on what it is to be Navajo now.”
—CALVIN CROSBY, The King’s English Bookshop

“Denetsosie's new collection delivers gritty, fantastical, and beautifully intimate short stories that shed light on the young Indigenous experience.”
—COWBOYS & INDIANS MAGAZINE

“Whether it's a young Navajo man's unsettling encounter with his grandfather's casket, a gas station clerk entwined in the mystery of a kidnapped beauty queen, or a couple's quest to unravel the complexities of blood quantum in their pursuit of parenthood, Denetsosie's narratives resonate with the struggles and triumphs of a vibrant community.”
—INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY

“Denestosie gives an unfiltered peer into Diné modern familiarity, something that anyone can relate or learn from. She doesn’t shy away from drawing a thread from contemporary life to tradition, bringing into stark constraints how colonialism has changed the conditions of everyday life for Diné people. Yet all of her characters experience love near fashion and grapple with life’s toughest decisions.”
—CAROLANN JANE DURO, Quiet Quail Books Founder

“The Missing Morningstar is a vivid and imaginative mapping of the lives of Diné people and the many faceted ways in which we exist in this world. The characters have such depth that I could still see and hear them long after I had finished reading. Denetsosie is very much a part of the renaissance of Diné literature and the reclaiming of our own stories.”
—RAMONA EMERSON, author of Shutter

“The Missing Morningstar is full of voices that reveal grief and redemption. This collection is a compelling compendium of family, truths, loss and love. Denetsosie’s voice is a wonderful addition to contemporary fiction that explores Indigenous lives. I loved it.”
—BRANDON HOBSON, National Book Award finalist and author of The Removed

“Denetsosie’s characters are tied to the land and one another in ways that nurture and sometimes hurt. They’ll have you laughing, crying, and, sometimes, singing alongside them.”
—KELLI JO FORD, author of Crooked Hallelujah

“Denetsosie offers up stories from Navajo Nation filled with travelers and returners, ill-fated lovers and disgruntled daughters. These are stories that will break your heart and make you laugh and break your heart some more.”
—TONI JENSEN, author of Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land and From the Hilltop: Stories

“Denetsosie’s voice, at once thunderous and tender, sings in The Missing Morningstar. Each story maps a fierce love for heritage, relationships, and family against a brilliant backdrop of constellations, flashing belt buckles, and searchlights. A stunning debut.”
—KINSALE DRAKE, Founder of NDN Girls Book Club

“Two thirds heartbreak, one third redemption, these stories of contemporary life in and around the Navajo Reservation bear all the generational trauma of colonialism and all the hope and humor of the people who live between the four sacred peaks.”
—PAM HOUSTON, author of Air Mail and Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country

“These short stories teem with ghosts of all kinds, from the spirits of loved ones who’ve passed on, to the ghots of lost love, to the relentless poltergeist of colonialism. Despite it all, Denetsosie’s characters are powerful reminders of why we keep on living. These are characters that will live with me long after finishing the book!”
—HALEE KIRKWOOD, Birchbark Books

“The stories in The Missing Morningstar made me laugh, cry, and then immediately begin reading them again. The tales move from the Navajo Reservation to Idaho and Utah, illuminating the beauty, joy, and pain of Native life in the twenty-first century. A fantastic collection by a stunning new voice in Indigenous literature.”
—DAVID HESKA WANBLI WEIDEN, author of Winter Counts

From the Publisher

★ 2023-07-13
A collection of stories that examine coming of age, family, and Diné life.

The book opens with "Dormant," in which 17-year-old Bernadine becomes involved in a relationship with 24-year-old Aaron after helping him rescue an abandoned kitten. Bernadine considers her mother’s choice in men who are always “jailbirds” and what her future might look like with Aaron, a white man. “Interracial couples always had a hard time on the reservation, especially when the woman was Navajo,” she notes. This theme of the expectations imposed on Navajo women recurs several times; the stories look closely at the connections between self and community and also provide a view of reservation life and traditions. In "The Casket in the Backseat," a man gets a ride from a hearse and discovers his grandfather’s spirit is trapped in the casket. In "Snow Bath Season," a dead mother speaks to her daughter through Amazon’s Alexa. In the title story, a teen witnesses the disappearance of Miss Northwestern Arizona. These ingenious tales are rangy in their scope and form. “Under the Porchway” is notable for the way it interweaves plot with instructions for how to butcher a sheep. The author's sharp prose is amplified by extraordinary similes such as “roots clenched into the earth like wiry brown fists” and “veins clung in clusters beneath the skin of their hands like turquoise squash blossoms.” Not only are the metaphors and similes surprising, but the turns within each story are as well. Just when it feels like a plot might move into a familiar trope, it upends itself in the best way. The stories don’t provide tidy resolutions, but they reveal essential truths about the continued effects of colonization on Indigenous people, including the lack of resources on tribal lands, ongoing mental health and substance abuse crises, violence against women, and Indigenous women going missing.

Propulsive and complex, this is a gorgeously written debut.

Kirkus Reviews