Oscar Hokeah’s Calling for a Blanket Dance won the PEN America/Hemmingway Award for Debut Novel, was a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction.
The novel takes pressing conversations in important directions and allows us to sit with Indigenous histories in ways that are especially relevant to current politics. A hyperlocal work, the chapters center around Ever Geimausaddle, a Cherokee/Kiowa/Mexican protagonist, with deep ties to Tahlequah and Lawton, Oklahoma, and to Aldama, Chihuahua, Mexico. Told in a polyvocal way, each chapter reveals more about Ever’s life and experiences through the eyes of family and community members. The novel might be described as a coming-of-age story, showcasing the protagonist’s path toward decolonization. Although the overarching narrative is harsh at times, representing many Native realities, it ultimately highlights Ever’s beautiful path toward healing.
I recently sat down with Hokeah, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and Kiowa Tribe from his mother’s side, Mexican from his father’s side, to talk about his novel and writing practice.
*This interview was conducted in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and has been edited for clarity and length.
Kashona Notah (KN): Can you talk about the evolution of the book? In other interviews you’ve said it started at Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), took about fifteen years to write, and that it started as a novel-in-stories. Which character voices came to you first and how did you develop them into writing the novel as we see it today?
Oscar Hokeah (OH): Initially when I was at IAIA, I was trying to develop certain craft elements. I was writing short stories to try to find things like character, setting, and dialogue. I was reading books by N. Scott Momaday and Alice Munroe, and other writers, that individually became influential on how I structured my writing. But in writing short stories, I eventually got to the point where I decided I was going to try and capture the intertribal dynamics I grew up with here in Oklahoma– so many of us here, and other places as well, move between two different tribes, not just one single tribe. And what I saw in literature at the time was that most were writing from a single tribal perspective. So, the oldest chapter in the novel, Quinton Quoetone’s chapter, was my venture into trying to capture a Kiowa voice. I wanted to find something that was unique and specific. I was thinking in a very hyperlocal way, even though at that time, I didn’t have the terminology to call it that. I just wanted to write something that was very Kiowa. After I got that story done, I was like, well that’s my Kiowa voice, now I need to write my Cherokee voice. And so, the second oldest chapter in the book, Hayes Shade’s chapter, was born. I was looking at Tahlequah and this area, and what the nuances are here, including the speaking patterns of Cherokee people that are different from Kiowas. I was trying to juxtapose the two. After writing those two stories, which became very foundational, I wrote more and more stories. But I put it down for a number of years. Eventually, it hit me that it was a transformation narrative though. And because I had that arc, I structured the other character voices around Ever, and I started to see the book as a novel rather than a novel-in-stories. By 2019, I had all the characters you see now, and by 2020 I went on submission with my agent.
KN: In Opbee’s chapter we find out Ever is struggling financially and must sell the quilts Lena (his grandmother) made for him and his kids. When Hank calls for a blanket dance, it’s clear the community knows of the family’s hardships. Opbee, who is Kiowa, then does everything she can to bring them back to his family, and through that, the protection they provide when he and his family are struggling. Can you say more about Opbee and that chapter?
OH: Opbee means big sister in Kiowa. Someone is an opbee when they’re young, but in a cyclical way, they become an opbee again when they’re an elder. She is based on many of the elders in my Kiowa community. I wanted to have a character who wasn’t immediately a close relative to Ever, someone who might be considered a great aunt outside of Kiowa communities, but a character who still acted in a close way. I wanted to show how tightly knit Native communities are. Opbee represents that. In her chapter, I wanted to signal to the reader that Ever made the full transformation to someone who is actively trying to make things better for everyone around him. And because Opbee is a matriarch and an elder, it’s almost like she is giving her blessing in that way, where she gathers the blankets back up and gives them back to Ever.
KN: The first and last chapters are like a call and response. We begin with Lena advocating for Turtle to move back to Tahlequah. But it isn’t until decades later that Ever comes to truly understand the dream and protection of his grandmother. Can you talk about how the novel connects hopes, dreams, and aspirations across generations?
OH: A lot of us want the best for our future generations. Lena, who is really concerned about her grandson at the very beginning, is worried about how he will turn out, because of the traumatic thing he saw. Her hopes and dreams are for Ever to heal. And that’s why she makes the quilt and has the medicine man pray over it. But Ever is also creating the foundations for dreams in the future. He doesn’t see the quilt for his entire life, until right at the end when he is getting his “forever home.” Ever is empowered to be strong enough to give to the next generations. Structurally, if I’m looking at the novel, the way I envision it is that, not only does it have a traditional narrative arc, but in a Native way, it’s a spiral. The book starts out as a tight spiral, where a reader only sees limited information about Ever, through the lens of his relatives, but as he gets older, a reader sees more and more about him. The spiral gets bigger and bigger. By the end, a reader has the most understanding of who Ever is through the perspective of all the people who have cared about him.
KN: Totally, we see Ever transform and learn from his mistakes, we see him ultimately help people in need, and we see him fulfill the dreams of generations that preceded him. You’ve also talked about how this narrative can be read as Ever’s process of decolonization. Can you say more about that?
OH: My personal perspective on decolonization is that it’s a process of healing. I’ve been working with at-risk youth for over twenty years. So, I just took a lot of what I’ve lived myself and put it into the main character. And putting the process of decolonization into the novel itself meant that I had to show it can take a long period of time. Ultimately it is up to each of us individually to make the choice to want to get past the trauma, to get to a space where we have more self-determination. And sometimes you get locked in the trauma, and you fulfill a negative perception of what it is to be Native in the community. But the more you can get out of that trauma, the more you can steer the future in a positive direction. That’s how I think of decolonization, and that’s how I structured the novel. I was focused on the ways that Ever was healing himself, but also asked how his work with youth, including his own children, would transform them.
KN: What was important for you to portray in this work? What had you not seen in literature that you wanted to add?
OH: Early on, I was interested in that intertribal element I mentioned, because I felt like that wasn’t always being talked about. And back in the 90s and early 2000s, Natives were often referred to as a singular homogenous group, as opposed to the truth, that every tribe is different. And some tribes are radically different. I wanted to bring that to the page because I hadn’t really seen it. Also, since I’m half Mexican and there are a growing number of community members who are half Mexican, not only here on the Cherokee Reservation, but in other communities as well, I felt that representing characters who are Native and Mexican would be an important narrative, giving that experience a sense of validation. Growing up, I didn’t really have those examples in literature, those reflections of someone like me, so I really wanted to bring that to the page.
KN: Writing voice can be one of the hardest things about fiction. You alternate between Cherokee, Kiowa, and Mexican characters and voices, in the first person. And in a lot of ways, it seems that the Native voices bend English to be more Native through Native language, and Mexican voices bend English to be more Mexican, through Spanish. Can you say more about that?
OH: Eventually I got to a point where I realized that across cultures, when individuals aren’t speaking their language fluently, but their parents or grandparents did, the next couple generations often hold on to certain things. There are terminologies that have to do with the people that take care of you–so like your mom, your grandma, your grandpa, your dad. Those terms are often in a person’s ancestral language, whether we’re talking about Kiowa, Cherokee, or Spanish. And other cultures do the same thing. So, when I was writing, I thought about what might be retained if you’re a second or third generation person who doesn’t speak their language fluently. And then I started to look at specific slang from communities, like Kiowa slang, or Cherokee slang. And when I was looking at Spanish, I was looking at Mexican Spanish, the type of Spanish that my father would speak being from the state of Chihuahua, and that region. I made sure to use that language in the book so people could relate.
KN: Thinking about current politics, how does this novel put a narrative out there in response to the political suppression of Native and Indigenous voices?
OH: I think there is always an ebb and flow with Native voices being heard. Oftentimes, we don’t get as much attention as we probably need. We don’t get to have a certain level of protection, so we get preyed upon quite a bit. Since we’re such a small minority, we don’t have as large a voice as other communities. What I hope is that the novel brings attention to our humanity and that we do deserve to have a voice. Our sovereignty is always under threat. Especially with things like the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), and I work with Indian Child Welfare, so that is always on my mind—every two or three years there is always some type of challenge to ICWA, which is a direct challenge to our sovereignty. I think about how much our sovereignty might be eroded, if not completely eradicated. I’m also looking at some of the politics on the border right now. I purposely turned the narrative to face south when talking about Indigenous peoples. Again, back in the 90s and 2000s, there was an inclusive element with Native people in Canada, but there wasn’t a ton of dialogue about all the Indigenous people south of the border. So, in the novel, I go directly across that border.
KN: Oklahoma is home to 39 tribes, most of whom were forced here through colonial violence. Oklahoma is also incredibly diverse. What about the Oklahoma literary landscape do you hope readers take away from your work?
OH: That we’re multilingual and multicultural. I hope readers take away a broader understanding of our diversity. I don’t know that people really realize that there are 39 tribes here. At one point, there was this concept in the United States that they wanted to bring every tribe here, right to the middle of the country, because they thought that nobody would want to use the land. They just wanted to put all the Natives in the middle. That ran out of steam eventually, but we ended up with 39 tribes in this part of America, 39 tribes with different languages. There are more languages right here in Oklahoma than on the entire continent of Europe. And I think that when people realize that, understanding that our language revitalization programs are very robust, they might understand that it’s a very rich cultural environment.
KN: Who are some of your influences?
OH: Momaday is probably one of the biggest, but also Robert J. Conley. He’s Cherokee and probably the first Native writer I read. Conley used Cherokee and English and that’s where that initial influence came from. I’m also a big fan of Louise Erdrich and her novels. The Round House was very influential for me. That book really taught me how to write about sensitive topics with care, stuff that’s hard to really look at. It taught me how to do that without crossing the line. But outside of Native writers, Alice Munroe is probably one of my biggest craft influences. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude as well, that’s one of the books I read and re-read. The tight language and concrete detail he used taught me that you can say a whole lot in one sentence.
KN: Can you talk about your journey as a writer more broadly? When did you start writing? How did you find your way to literature?
OH: I was fourteen and I had just dropped out of school. And I remember seeing a commercial for Stephen King and the uncut version of The Stand. I was like, oh that looks like a cool book, I bet you I could read that. So, I asked my mom if she could buy me the book. That was the first time I really got consumed in a whole fictional landscape. Shortly after reading The Stand, I realized he was just using words to tell stories on the page, and I felt like I could do that too. I started writing stories at that point, but I wrote more of a Native version. I also went on to read a lot of fantasy and played D&D, so I wrote Native Fantasy or Dark Fantasy. I thought I was going to write in those genres until I was 29 and started at IAIA, where I found N. Scott Momaday and other literary writers. At IAIA, I started to lean more literary and left the fantasy and horror stuff behind.
KN: What advice do you have for young and upcoming writers?
OH: To focus on one craft element at a time. Using dialogue as an example, maybe asking the question: How do you engage with dialogue in your personal life? Because of the way I engage with talking to people, I think of dialogue on the page as just another sentence structure, another beat in the song, another part of the rhythm. I switch the rhythm, switch the cadence, to keep people interested. But it took me a while to realize that about myself, and it came from understanding my personal relationship to speaking. Taking on each craft element like that, using your own experiences, who you are as a person, will make the language very specific to you. And that’s also why I advise writers to draw from personal experiences. No-one has lived your life but you, and all the people around you are very unique. If you get very hyperlocal and specific, a reader will find parallels and connections. They will be able to see your humanity. If you do all of that, you’ll create a unique voice all your own.
KN: That is great advice and useful for writers to keep in mind. Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to do the interview.
OH: My pleasure.
