Trigger warnings for alcoholism and discussions of suicide.
Louie arrives at the (fictional) Takoda reservation in Louisiana, unwittingly just in time to help his niece Noemi after she suffers a personal tragedy. He’s been gone for years, only coming back for the annual powwow. It’s been ten years since his last visit as Indian Burial Ground, by Nick Medina, opens. Over the course of the novel, we’ll learn what pushed Louie away—and how Noemi came to be stuck in arrested development.
Although the book begins with Noemi, Louie steals the show from the moment Noemi opens the door to her uncle. Everyone knows everyone (and everyone’s business) on the Takoda reservation, so we’re left to pick up clues about why some people embrace the long-absent man and why others give him the hairy eyeball or, worse, yell at him as soon as they see him. The narrative splits into two as Noemi and Louie take turns narrating the present and Louie takes us back to a very bad summer in 1986.
In the present, Noemi faces the sudden, strange death of the man she considers the best thing in her life. She struggles to hold herself together while the tribal police investigate. Louie is a sympathetic shoulder to lean on, but he seems a little too interested in how Noemi’s boyfriend died (or was killed). As Louie tells us more about 1986, it becomes clear why Louie wants to make sure that the dead are staying put.
The chapters set in 1986 are the best parts of Indian Burial Ground, though the present-day chapters have some moving moments. In 1986, Louie is struggling to hold his family together. His mother is deep into her alcoholism. His sister has her hands full balancing a toddler with the desire to still be a carefree teenager. Louie spends his summer hours babysitting and goofing off with his unsetting friend Jean-Luc. That’s when the deaths start. That’s also when the stories about the dead moving and speaking at wakes and in the cemetery start. Louie is fascinated by the mysteries around him and, when he’s not minding his niece and a neighbor’s toddler, Louie is poking around and asking questions to try and find out if the strange things he’s seen and heard are real. His investigation takes him into dark family secrets and Takoda lore. I sympathize with Noemi but, honestly, they can hardly compete with Louie’s harrowing journey.
I would recommend this to fans of The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones, and other Indigenous horror novels.