Extra Indians

Winner of the American Book Award

With equal precision and grit, this gripping novel unfolds the surreal consequences of a moment of kindness—and yields a rich and compassionate portrait of a man seeking redemption.

Every winter, Tommy Jack McMorsey makes the long haul from Texas to northern Minnesota to watch the meteor showers. One cold night in Bismarck, in a moment of kindness, Tommy Jack picks up a Japanese tourist determined to find the buried ransom money from the movie Fargo. When she dies of exposure while in Tommy Jack’s care, a media storm erupts, jarring loose pieces of Tommy Jack’s past: the horrors of Vietnam, a love affair, and the suicide of his closest friend, Fred Howkowski.

Extra Indians wends between a string of haunting memories and the present: Tommy Jack’s aimless life as truck driver and husband, Fred’s thwarted career as an actor in Hollywood, and the return of Tommy Jack’s estranged adoptive son to Big Antler, Texas. Exploring the ways images, stereotypes, and depictions of identity intersect with reality and lived experience, Extra Indians offers a powerful glimpse into contemporary American Indian life from the winner of the PEN Oakland Award.