Sacred Folks

Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. is the author of the Sacred trilogy, of which Sacred Smokes and Sacred City are the first two installments, and the gothic novella Pour One for the Devil. He is also the coeditor of the national bestseller Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology.

“I love the way Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. writes about urban Native lives in Chicago. There is something so familiar about the lives he writes about, and what he is doing with language is so new and unexpected. He writes the city beautifully.”—Tommy Orange, author of There There “Strong trilogies don’t end, exactly. They arc up into the sky and just keep going, and those of us left here on the ground tilt our faces up to watch, and, because of books like this, we maybe find each other’s hands to hold, as well.”—Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Angel of Indian Lake “Not since Piri Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets have we seen such a clear snapshot of tender lives spilled onto the cold streets of a major American city. Van Alst has written a three-book urban western filled with the history of violence, drugs, poverty, and racism that Native Americans have had to face in virtually all American settings. Follow Van Alst down these ‘mean streets,’ where creation myths, ancient history, religion, and real, everyday life intersect, and where you’ll learn what it is to survive.”—Ito Romo, author of The Border Is Burning

• Author’s NoteWamakognaka / Creation1. The Never Ending / Inipi2. Go Blue / Baptism3. No Doubt / Hanbleceya4. GITMO / Confirmation5. Dance Dance Dance / Wacipi6. How I Wonder / Communion7. O’Migra / Lowanpi8. Three Corinthians / Confession9. La Montaigne / Yuwipi10. Rent Town / Anointing the Sick11. Descendit / Hunkapi12. Over the River / Contrition13. Ad Inferos / Nagi Gluhapi14. Alleys Are Two-Way Streets That Have Their Own Rules / Fabulae non sacra liturgiaeEulogy / Last RitesAcknowledgments