About this event
Note: This event will take place in Kerouac Alley, located between City Lights and Vesuvio Cafe. It is free to the public. Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Widely acclaimed storyteller Greg Sarris (author of Grand Avenue and Watermelon Nights) debuts his first novel in twenty-eight years with The Last Human Bear, marking the triumphant return of a writer hailed by Kirkus as “a singularly talented novelist.” Set against the backdrop of 20th-century California Indian country, Sarris’ novel transports readers to migrant field worker camps, Depression-era rancherias, and cinematic Sonoma landscapes to follow the life journey of Mary Hatcher, a Native Pomo woman of unbow-able spirit. Forged in tragedy and endowed with peculiar secrets from her Coast Miwok stepmother, Mary comes of age an outcast among her own people, rumored to be a tolik—a poisoner, a shapeshifter, and the last of her kind. A mystery even to herself, Mary passes between Native and white societies, carving a path against the twin headwinds of prejudice and poverty toward hard-fought independence. A life of defiant trysts and turns, two loves, and one curse culminate in a haunting final act for which Mary must unburden herself in order to die: “That’s why I’m talking. I can’t go on until I pass on this business.” With The Last Human Bear Sarris delivers an unforgettable protagonist surrounded by a lucidly realized cast of characters. Offering an engrossing rejoinder to the paucity of fiction centering California’s first peoples, Mary’s story—textured with code-switching, old world lore, and a quiet enchantment with the more-than-human world—illuminates her times and introduces a voice to American fiction that has been conspicuously absent. Rendered with a “touch that is both delicate and vivid,” says Copperfield’s book buyer Sheryl Cotleur, “this novel is so much more rich and complicated than a few words can express, and it is so very worth it to discover that in the reading.” (via City Lights)
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Greg Sarris ↗
Greg Sarris is an author, professor, and tribal leader serving his seventeenth term as Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. His books include Grand Avenue, Watermelon Nights, and The Forgetters. An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is also a trustee of the Sundance Institute and a Regent of the University of California. He lives in Sonoma County.
Oscar Villalon ↗
Oscar Villalon is the editor of ZYZZYVA, winner of a Whiting Literary Magazine Prize in 2022. His writing has been published in Stranger’s Guide, Freeman’s, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. He and his family live in San Francisco.
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This event was curated from City Lights ↗.
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