Owls Don't Have to Mean Death Paperback – October 7, 2017

Chip has captured what it means to be a Native Americanin a crisis situation. He has also captured what it meansto loose a partner to death, in this case from AIDS. Hishealing takes place through traditional Native Americanvalues.

Lots of good new fiction being published about Florida these days! I'm not talking about Tom Wolfe. I mean Chip Livingston, Jennine Capó Crecet, Lauren Groff, Karen Russell, Elmore Leonard, to name just 5. This novel is worth reading for so many reasons, including its good sentences and its rich themes of family, Creek culture, history, memory, queerness, the trials of a hero, vision quests, what it's like to be Indian in this crazy present, and (not least by any means) new ways of imagining a healthier relation between humans and the Wild (including both animals and landscape).Note: the following quotation from a professional reviewer on this website shows the unintentionally disastrous effects of sloppy writing! — in this case, leaving out the second comma in a parenthetical phrase. It's not a minor mistake. In the quotation below, surely there needs to be a _comma_ after "prognosis," yes? Part of the grammatical problem here is also that there's so much stuff stuffed between the subject (this story) and the verb (is) placed near the very end of the sentence. Except in expert hands, that's usually a no-no: don't construct a sentence with lots of interruptions between the subject and its verb. Here's the sentence: "This story of an American college student struggling to piece together his Creek Indian heritage and learning what it means to love--really love--his HIV-positive boyfriend, no matter the prognosis is a triumph."

A story of loss, love and identity. One where "being gay" isn't the conflict, just a part of the character for a refreshing change of pace.