Logo image
  • BookDragon
  • About
  • The Blogger
  • Review Policy
  • Smithsonian APAC
 
48056
post-template-default,single,single-post,postid-48056,single-format-standard,stardust-core-1.1,stardust-child-theme-ver-1.0.0,stardust-theme-ver-3.1,ajax_updown_fade,page_not_loaded,smooth_scroll

BookDragon Blog

29 Apr / The Removed by Brandon Hobson [in Booklist]

*STARRED REVIEW
A stellar #OwnVoices all-Indigenous cast gathers to heighten Brandon Hobson’s luminous follow-up to the 2018 National Book Award finalist Where the Dead Sit Walking. During the 15 years since Ray-Ray was wrongly, fatally shot by a white police officer, his surviving family has fractured. With Ray-Ray’s upcoming annual family bonfire memorial held on Cherokee National Holiday, the scattered Echotas just might reunite in their rural Quah, Oklahoma home.

Ray-Ray’s mother, Maria, made solemn with an edge of desperation by DeLanna Studi, wrestles alone as her husband, Ernest’s, Alzheimer’s worsens. Much-younger brother Edgar, addicted to meth and adroitly voiced by a restrained Shaun Taylor-Corbett, is lost somewhere in New Mexico, both hunted and haunted in the Darkening Land. Sister Sonja provides Katie Rich her audiobook debut in a firm, no-nonsense narration intensifying Sonja’s cringe-inducing affair with a younger man that implodes with shocking satisfaction.

Between Maria, Edgar, and Sonja’s chapters are Tsala’s insertions, as Gary Farmer gravely ciphers the Echota ancestor martyred before the Trail of Tears, who patiently talks-story about generations of their community. A crisp, youthful Christopher Salazar opens with a prologue-as-flashback to Ray-Ray just before his death.

Stupendously enthralling, the polyphonic production further enhances the brilliance already on the page.

Review: “Media,” Booklist, April 15, 2021

Readers: Adult

Published: 2021

By Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost Tags > BookDragon, Booklist, Brandon Hobson, Christopher Salazar, Death, DeLanna Studi, Drugs/Alcohol/Addiction, Family, Father/son relationship, Gary Farmer, Identity, Katie Rich, Love, Murder, Parent/child relationship, Police violence, Removed, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Siblings
No Comment

Post a Comment
Cancel Reply

Smithsonian Institution
Asian Pacific American Center

Capital Gallery, Suite 7065
600 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20024

202.633.2691 | APAC@si.edu

Additional contact info

Mailing Address
Capital Gallery
Suite 7065, MRC: 516
P.O. Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012

Fax: 202.633.2699

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

SmithsonianAPA brings Asian Pacific American history, art, and culture to you through innovative museum experiences and digital initiatives.

About BookDragon

Welcome to BookDragon, filled with titles for the diverse reader. BookDragon is a new media initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), and serves as a forum for those interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American experience through literature. BookDragon is inhabited by Terry Hong.

Learn More

Contact BookDragon

Please email us at SIBookDragon@gmail.com

Follow BookDragon!
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Looking for Something Else …?

or