Night of the Living Rez <\/p>\n
Author: Morgan Talty \u00a0<\/p>\n
ISBN-13: 9781916751187 <\/p>\n
Publisher: \u00a0 And Other Stories, UK<\/p>\n
Guideline Price: \u00a314.99<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s excellent novel from author Morgan Talty, Fire Exit, was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2025. Irish readers can now read Talty\u2019s debut title, Night of the Living Rez, which is available here this month. Set on the Penobscot reservation in Maine, it\u2019s a pitch-perfect example of the linked short stories genre. <\/p>\n
The stories are non-linear, weaving in and out of narrator David\u2019s journey from when he is a small boy trying to struggle with his parents\u2019 broken marriage, to a crisis in his late 20s, as his life spirals out of control. <\/p>\n
Along the way we take in the experiences of a small Native American community that is doubly disenfranchised by virtue of being a minority group as well as residents of a small rural reservation challenged by poverty. <\/p>\n
One of Talty\u2019s standout talents is the way he crams multiple, often sensory details into his narrative, so that they vividly create the scene, introduce a back story, tell a good yarn and even make you smile without making it overworked or dense. <\/p>\n
Horror is a shadow slipping in and out of the narrative. A plague of squirming, moribund caterpillars carpets the ground of the rez one summer, stinking as they die. In Half Life the apocalyptic scenario sees two men wasting drug-blitzed days in an abandoned chemical silo. <\/p>\n
The themes explored are dark, overall. But the characters, who come into focus as the stories move forward, can be mischievous, entertaining, shocking \u2013 and their flaws touch the reader, their bad decisions twist the heart \u2013 or make us laugh out loud. <\/p>\n
At one point Klonapin-addled Fellis delivers his mother\u2019s Adderall prescription to his auntie, who is expecting her usual blood pressure meds. Later Auntie Alice quips, \u201cat least I got my bills done\u201d. It is a horror story that is not a \u201chorror story\u201d. It\u2019s a book about addiction that is not a book \u201cabout addiction\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s a heartfelt, rich tapestry about childhood, growing up, family, loss, poverty and illness. <\/p>\n
Riddled through it, however, is that self-destructive, life-destroying urge to not have to experience all the above. The rampant over-prescription of legally available drugs \u2013 otherwise known as the great American opioid crisis \u2013 drenches the lives of the community in Night of the Living Rez. A riveting debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Night of the Living Rez Author: Morgan Talty \u00a0 ISBN-13: 9781916751187 Publisher: \u00a0 And Other Stories, UK Guideline…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,27677,457,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-35155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-best-irish-book","11":"tag-books","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}