Susan Kalter presents seventeen previously unpublished short stories by John Joseph Mathews and skillfully intertwines literary analysis, author biography, and archival research with his journals and personal correspondence. Mathews is considered one of the founders and shapers of the twentieth-century Native American novel, yet literary history has largely ignored his work.
An Osage writer from Oklahoma, Mathews also spent time in Los Angeles and Europe. The stories in this volume were written at the dawn of the nuclear age by an author who exposed the social dynamics of an emerging world order, an author who had also published explicitly about the ways he observed the East Coast establishment suppressing southwestern writers. This work shows us the aesthetics we missed out on as a result. Topics range from adulterous murder to Cherokee removal, from the thrill of the hunt to the cultural impasses between U.S. citizens in Mexico and their hosts, from the modern Middle East to the fantastical future. The stories bear the consciousness of a postwar world-its confusions and regrets, its orthodoxies and hypocrisies-as well as the mark of a practiced and prolific writer. The Short Stories of John Joseph Mathews, an Osage Writer sheds light on the complexity of Native American experiences of the last century and the ripple of these stories today.
Susan Kalter presents seventeen previously unpublished short stories by John Joseph Mathews and skillfully intertwines literary analysis, author biography, and archival research with his journals and personal correspondence. Mathews is considered one of the founders and shapers of the twentieth-century Native American novel, yet literary history has largely ignored his work.
An Osage writer from Oklahoma, Mathews also spent time in Los Angeles and Europe. The stories in this volume were written at the dawn of the nuclear age by an author who exposed the social dynamics of an emerging world order, an author who had also published explicitly about the ways he observed the East Coast establishment suppressing southwestern writers. This work shows us the aesthetics we missed out on as a result. Topics range from adulterous murder to Cherokee removal, from the thrill of the hunt to the cultural impasses between U.S. citizens in Mexico and their hosts, from the modern Middle East to the fantastical future. The stories bear the consciousness of a postwar world-its confusions and regrets, its orthodoxies and hypocrisies-as well as the mark of a practiced and prolific writer. The Short Stories of John Joseph Mathews, an Osage Writer sheds light on the complexity of Native American experiences of the last century and the ripple of these stories today.
Introduction
Westerns
The Thinkin’ Man
Too Small for a Horse
Old Bob (Unpublished and unedited version)
Old Bob (Manuscript antecedent to the published version)
Travel Stories
Lady of the Inn
Allah’s Guest
Yellow Hair
Only a Blonde
Stories from Indian Country
The Apache Woman
The Talk of the Face
The Flower on Cadron Creek
Moccasin Prints
Bad Medicine
Stories of World War II and the Cold War
No Time
The Liberal View
What Thing Is Fairest
Natural Science
The Meek Shall Inherit?
Source Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
John Joseph Mathews (1895–1979) is the author of
Wah’Kon-tah: The Osage and the White Man’s Road; Sundown; Talking
to the Moon; Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E. W.
Marland; The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters; Twenty
Thousand Mornings: An Autobiography; and a children’s
book, Old Three Toes and Other Tales of Survival and
Extinction. Susan Kalter is a professor of American
literature and Native American studies at Illinois State
University. She is the editor of Twenty Thousand Mornings: An
Autobiography and Old Three Toes and Other Tales of Survival and
Extinction.
"Composed of seventeen unpublished short stories written mostly
between 1945 and 1951, this remarkable collection that Susan Kalter
has brought together reveals a fascinating and unexpected side of
John Joseph Mathews."—Alexander Steele, Western American
Literature
“Susan Kalter’s work brings to life the wider world of Mathews
beyond his well-known Osage works. . . . Mathews remains a towering
figure, and the short stories will only add to his
reputation.”—Blue Clark, professor of law at Oklahoma City
University and author of Indian Tribes of Oklahoma: A Guide
“This book deftly weaves literary analysis, author biography,
archival work, and historical context into literary recovery. . . .
It is thoroughly researched and communicates that research in clear
and accessible prose.”—Alyssa Hunziker, assistant professor of
English at Oklahoma State University
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