Old School Indian
Aaron John Curtis
May 2025 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Jason Grasl
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9 hr 57 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
A Kirkus Editor’s Pick • A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Cowboys & Indians | Brit + Co | Debutiful Most Anticipated Book of 2025
“With amazing dexterity, Aaron John Curtis’s moving debut novel, Old School Indian, combines raucous humor with respect for ancestral traditions.” —Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
"A novel of pure heart and mastery.” ―Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit
"An inspired novel by an author whose voice absolutely sizzles on the page.” ―Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of Wellness and The Nix
A coming-of-middle-age novel about an Ahkwesáhsne man’s reluctant return home and what it takes to heal.
Abe Jacobs is Kanien’kehá:ka from Ahkwesáhsne—or, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At eighteen, Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back.
Now forty-three, Abe is suffering from a rare disease—one his doctors in Miami believe will kill him. Running from his diagnosis and a failing marriage, Abe returns to the Rez, where he’s persuaded to undergo a healing at the hands of his Great Uncle Budge. But Budge—a wry, recovered alcoholic prone to wearing punk T-shirts—isn’t all that convincing. And Abe’s time off the Rez has made him a thorough skeptic.
To heal, Abe will undertake a revelatory journey, confronting the parts of himself he’s hidden ever since he left home and learning to cultivate hope, even at his darkest hour.
Delivered with crackling wit, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the power and secrets of family, the capacity for healing and catharsis, and the ripple effects of history and culture.
“With amazing dexterity, Aaron John Curtis’s moving debut novel, Old School Indian, combines raucous humor with respect for ancestral traditions.” —Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
"A novel of pure heart and mastery.” ―Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit
"An inspired novel by an author whose voice absolutely sizzles on the page.” ―Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of Wellness and The Nix
A coming-of-middle-age novel about an Ahkwesáhsne man’s reluctant return home and what it takes to heal.
Abe Jacobs is Kanien’kehá:ka from Ahkwesáhsne—or, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At eighteen, Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back.
Now forty-three, Abe is suffering from a rare disease—one his doctors in Miami believe will kill him. Running from his diagnosis and a failing marriage, Abe returns to the Rez, where he’s persuaded to undergo a healing at the hands of his Great Uncle Budge. But Budge—a wry, recovered alcoholic prone to wearing punk T-shirts—isn’t all that convincing. And Abe’s time off the Rez has made him a thorough skeptic.
To heal, Abe will undertake a revelatory journey, confronting the parts of himself he’s hidden ever since he left home and learning to cultivate hope, even at his darkest hour.
Delivered with crackling wit, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the power and secrets of family, the capacity for healing and catharsis, and the ripple effects of history and culture.
About the author
Aaron John Curtis is an enrolled member of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, which he'll tell you is the white name for the American side of Akwesasne. Aaron has judged for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance prizes, the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, and the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Since 2004, Aaron has been Quartermaster at Books & Books, Miami’s largest independent bookstore. He lives in Miami.
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