I met Staples at his reading at Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee the day after his book went on sale. This Town Sleeps received early critical acclaim it was named one of the 31 LGBT books that will change the literary landscape by O Magazine and one of the most anticipated debuts of 2020 by Electric Literature. The ghost dog leads Marion, the protagonist, into the depths of history as he learns about the death of an Ojibwe basketball star, his family’s past, and his own relationship to his indigenous identity.Ī member of the Red Lake Nation, Staples received his MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and has published short stories in Asimov's Science Fiction and Nightmare magazine. Staples debut novel, This Town Sleeps(Couterpoint), an expectations-defying ghost story, murder mystery, and coming-of-age tale set on a fictional Native American reservation. The rusty screech of the merry-go-round and his memory conjure the ghost of a dog that playfully bounds off, begging to be chased. As he mindlessly spins the old merry-go-round, he remembers how they tumbled in the grass, wrestling and laughing together. He ends up at a playground where he and his now-lover used to play as boys. He’s sleepless, struggling with the loneliness and confusion of dating someone in the closet. A young man drives alone at night along deserted rural roads and silent small-town streets.
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