Calling for a Blanket Dance, by Oscar Hokeah.
The San Juan College One Book One Community Committee is pleased to announce the 2023-2024 selection: Calling for a Blanket Dance, by Oscar Hokeah.
Oscar Hokeah’s winner of the 2023 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel is a moving and deeply engaging debut novel about a young Native American man finding strength in his familial identity, from a stellar new voice in fiction.
The electric debut takes us into the life of Ever Geimausaddle, whose family, part Mexican, part Native American, is determined to hold onto their community despite obstacles everywhere they turn. Ever’s father is injured at the hands of corrupt police on the border when he goes to visit family in Mexico, while his mother struggles both to keep her job and care for her husband. Young Ever is lost and angry at all that he doesn’t understand, at this world that seems to undermine his sense of safety. Ever’s relatives all have ideas about who he is and who he should be. His Cherokee grandmother, knowing the importance of proximity, urges the family to move across Oklahoma to be near her, while his grandfather, watching their traditions slip away, tries to reunite Ever with his heritage through traditional gourd dances. Through it all, every relative wants the same, to remind Ever of the rich and supportive communities that surround him, there to hold him tight and for Ever to learn to take the strength given to him to save not only himself but also the next generation. How will this young man visualize a place for himself when the world hasn’t made room for him to start with? Honest, heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting, Calling for a Blanket Dance is the story of how Ever Geimausaddle finds his way home.
Oscar Hokeah is a citizen of Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma from his mother’s side and has Mexican heritage through his father. He holds an MA in English with a concentration in Native American Literature from the University of Oklahoma, as well as a BFA in Creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), with a minor in Indigenous Liberal Studies. He is a recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship Award through IAIA and is also a winner of the Native writer /award through the Taos Summer Writers Conference. His short stories have been published in South Dakota Review, American Short Fiction, Yellow Medicine Review, Surreal South and Red Ink Magazine. He works with Indian Child /welfare in Tahlequah.
The committee anticipates a year with robust and interesting programming. For more information on the One book One Community 2023-2024 selection, visit sanjuancollege.edu/onebook
