Indian Country — Like You’ve Never Heard It Before
Unforgettable tribal memoirs and history in audio
I have an end of the year treat.
Do you:
Love movies and TV like Reservation Dogs, or Frybread Face & Me?
Can’t get enough of tribal history all over our continent? — I’m talking about from pre-contact to 19th, 20th, and 21st century — from Urban Indian country, to reservation off the grid entirely.
These photos are a story for another day, but they show some memories from when my dad passed, and we remembered him up on the Klamath in Karuk country. He is the one who got me listening to Coyote and everything that came after!
A few years ago, I started talking to Poet Laureate Joy Harjo about recording her memoir and songs. I was simultaneously working with New Mexico author Jim Kristofic about recording his Navajo Rez memoirs, which would become the first audiobook code-switching between Dine and English.
Each project were both met with such love, I asked Audible if I could continue to search and produce un-recorded Indian Country classics, that might have been written a long time ago, but are the inspiration for all the great movies we’re seeing today.
I barely got started before my time at Audible was over! I have dozens more I’d love to record someday.
My Audible colleague Dan Battaglia, was always by my side urging me on and coming up with great title projects himself.
There’s been a sea change in the last decade of audiobooks — when we directors and producers cast for actors, the dialect and regional dialog must be true.
In the “old days” everyone in a book was typecast as a WASP, unless they had a British accent. It resulted in some ludicrous recordings! British accents were used to portray class differences, even if the story was set on another continent. But there has been a revolution, and a welcome one.
You may not notice it, because it’s seamless, but whenever we producers had code-switching or a very specific dialect, we cast for actors who had made it their lives and expertise to get it right. In many cases, they are longtime actors who learned the generic broadcasting voices of Hollywood and Broadway, but rarely if ever, got to use their language and dialect facility. In some cases, where we had stories with more than one tribe’s language, we were working with actors and linguists who’ve devoted their lives to “getting it right.”
I asked Dan if he could cut me some excerpts from our titles, so you could get a quick taste. Below, our treasure chest!
The links will take you to the full books, and each one also has a SoundCloud link to listen to a hefty piece of the story.
They Called Me #1: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School
By Bev Sellars
Bev narrates her Xat'sull First Nation story of how she was taken from her home, stripped of her name, and given a number. “Number 1.”
Everyone in Canada knows this story and American shall feel the same when they learn it.
Navajos Wear Nikes: A Reservation Life
By Jim Kristofic
Jim was an 8 year old boy in Pittsburgh when his fed-up nurse mother said, “That’s it, we’re moving to the Navajo reservation.” —The best decision she ever made.
This is the story of his young childhood and what was going on in the early 90s on the Rez.
Kristofic’s sequel about his young adult life is “Reservation Restless.” — just as good. “Medicine Woman: The Story of the First Native American Nursing School” is his history book. And “Send a Runner,” by Edison Eskeets and Kristofic, is about how Eskeets and his family organized a ceremonial run to deliver a message and to honor the survivors of the Long Walk.
Poet Warrior
Written and narrated by Joy Harjo
Joy’s work has been loved by poets for decades, and when she became the US Poet Laureate, it changed everything. She recorded all her work in Oklahoma. Her music is beautiful, as well.
Be sure to check out “Crazy Brave,” too, her first autobiography.
“Another Role,” from Indian Country Noir
By Reed Farrel Coleman, narrated by Cheech Marin
This one is special.
“Indian Country Noir” is an anthology from Akashic Books. I asked them if I could record this stand-alone story about a “Hollywood Indian” with actor Cheech Marin, in a voice you’ve never heard from Cheech before.
So often we find people we think of as “comedians” are some of the deepest actors of all. I can’t think Cheech enough for Reed’s story justice.
Here’s the story: What happens when you’ve been playing a “dumb Indian,” in Western boobtube backgrounds all your life? And then something happens that turns it all around . . .
Sacred Smokes
By Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
Ted Van Alst is Chippewa, but he’s never been on a reservation. Absolutely not.
He’s a gangbanger in a special part of downtown Chicago: home to urban Indians and immigrants and working folks and the whole gamut of people who get by in a world that doesn't care whether they do so or not.
“Sacred City” is his Ted’s sequel, and it’s just as good. Everyone should know these two.
Sandra’s Hands: A Reflective Journey from the Vietnam War to the Siege of Wounded Knee
By Paul Kristian Berg, forward and narration by Daniel Battaglia
Paul Berg came back from Vietnam and civilian life doesn’t make any sense. He becomes a Bureau of Indian Affairs teacher, and encounters another war: on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in the 1970s, that birthed the AIM movement.
Paul’s student, a Lakota woman named Sandra Woundedfoot, changes his life and for that matter, thousands of people on the reservation. Now is the time to learn her story.
what a lovely gift, Susie. Thank you!
I am going to listen to each of these! I’m thirsty for them. Sometimes I listen to Joy Harjo when I need a friend. To calm down or tune in. Same for Patti Smith. Sometimes listening is better than reading. And both do them have so many amazing recordings of music and books and poetry. A bounty.