The Dead Go to Seattle

(Paperback)

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Description

Tova Agard's world is literally falling apart: she's just been disowned by her father in a violent confrontation over her sexuality, and climate change is about to wreak havoc on the world around her. In the midst of catastrophe Tova meets Smithsonian Institute's ethnologist John Swanton on an Alaskan-ferry time machine, trapping Swanton on Tova's small hometown of Wrangell Island. Tova convinces Swanton that the island's contemporary stories are worth collecting despite their strangeness: in Tova's oral traditions, a woman becomes a bear, a man marries trees, a UFO hunts deer, and the dead go to Seattle. These forty-three linked tales in the story-cycle are not stories that the Smithsonian intended to collect, but by the time all the tales are told, their reconstruction of history will make a greater impact on the world around them then either Tova or Swanton could have ever imagined.

Reviews

"Cleverly framed, these stories capture a rich island community that is steeped in oral traditions. . . . a collection that rewards rereading and rumination."--Foreword Reviews

"In Prescott's debut collection, a young Native American woman confronts colonialism, homophobia, and a history of erasure by reclaiming the stories of her people. . . . [an] ambitious collection that boldly explores the intersection of magic, queerness, and indigenous history."--Kirkus Reviews "An enthralling, engaging, mind-bending, time-bending story collection that tells the old new and the new old and pulls everything apart and brings everything back together again . . . You will not find your cruise ship tour stop here; this is the way Alaska is passed down from generation to generation: unexpected, brave, lovely, unsettling. As one character says, "You might even get stuck here in our stories." Indeed. Start reading The Dead Go to Seattle and I promise: you will get stuck in these stories until you've turned the last page. Vivian Faith Prescott has given us an important, essential work that should be required reading for all thoughtful, imaginative people."--Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain, A Sudden Light, and How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets

Author Bio

Vivian Faith Prescott is a fifth generation Alaskan, born and raised on the small island of Wrangell in Southeastern Alaska. A writer of Smi, Suomalainen, and Irish descent (among others), and adopted into the T'akdeintaan clan, she is the founding member of Blue Canoe Writers in Sitka and Flying Island Writers and Artists in Wrangell, with an emphasis on mentoring Indigenous writers. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Alaska and a PhD in Cross Cultural Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her stories and poems have appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, and she is the recipient of a Rasmuson Fellowship and the Jason Wenger Award for Literary Excellence from the University of Alaska. Her Tlingit name is "Mother of Cute Little Raven."