Mapping the Interior

This is only my second time reading SGJ, but this novella has made me a fan. This Indigenous coming-of-age story is short but deep, subtle yet horrifying. After Junior's father dies in an accidental drowning, his mother moves their family of three off the reservation to a small town to save her own boys "from drowning in water [they] didn't have to, someday." Eight years later, Junior's younger brother Dino is suffering from seizures and being mercilessly bullied by kids on the bus and at school. Twelve-year-old* Junior is sleepwalking. And one night, he sees his dead father pass by a doorway. He's desperate to believe his father's visits are intended to help Dino, but it begins to appear something more sinister may be at play.

*For some reason, all the marketing blurbs state that Junior is fifteen despite the fact that at no point in the book is he ever fifteen. The opening line of the book is "I was twelve the first time I saw my dead father cross from the kitchen doorway to the hall that led back to the utility room." Annoying, but don't let it deter you.