Just Published Reservation Nation A Novel By David Fuller Cook List Price US$ 22.00 200 Pages, Hard Cover ISBN: 978-1-893448-04-9

Winner of the inaugural
Fabri Literary Prize

The story of the Uwharrie is told by Warren Eubanks, who first must unlearn the lessons of his childhood: “There was a lot of not-saying on the Reservation, when I was a kid. I learned it.” Possessed of a keenly observant nature, the boy Warren—whose Indian name is The Seed—sees smoke of varying colors around the adults who people his world; his imperative is to figure out what each color means. He does it in the only way he knows how: by observing. By the time he is an adult, Warren has collected myriad stories whose protagonists are propelled by a fierce independence, yet are intertwined through a shared land, a common fate, and the engaging and infectious humor with which Warren portrays them.

There is Grandmother, a weaver of lives whose death at the start of the book doesn’t erase her presence throughout it; and Grandfather, a man of few words who said them a long time ago, but who at the close of his life offers surprises of his own. There is Chief Billy, who wrangles the tribe’s economic life like a Las Vegas wheeler-dealer; Ruay Overmoon, Thomas Matoas Paint, Ruby Kehoe, and a dozen other richly conceived characters. And there is Sun Susie, who loves horses and Marlboros, and whose mysterious disappearance evokes the inevitable fragility of reservation life in a white-man’s world, and propels the plot into a murder mystery.         

Warren’s imperative to uncover truth takes him down Reservation Road to the American Indian Movement and tribal politics—the land grabs, oil and mineral rip-offs, and betrayals, the long-nurtured grievances that divide the tribe. And of course the essential question facing the Uwharrie, the question of identity, which insinuates itself into every conflict. And as his journey takes him from the innocent wisdom of the child observer into a young adulthood of discovery, he uncovers much of what the deep silences of the Reservation are designed to hide. “There was a lot not said on the Reservation, but it didn't mean you didn't know it,” Warren concludes. In the book’s startling finale, the Seed assumes the role he was born for and named for: that of uncompromising witness.

Cook's beautifully modulated, speech-like cadences
give his debut novel a quiet power.
– Publisher’s Weekly (September 24, 2007)

Reservation Nation is a small masterpiece of time
and story and man’s place in it.
–ForeWord Magazine (Nov-Dec 2007)

Reservation Nation is both dreamlike and painfully real,
a delicate tribute to the power of story and myth, and
an exquisitely written meditation on both the fragility
and strength of culture, family, and faith.
           –Tara Ison  - Author of The List

Ask for Reservation Nation at your local bookstore.

To read more about it click here.

About the
Fabri Literary Prize

In 2006 Dr. Matthew McKay established the Fabri Literary Prize to honor the memory of Frances Fabri. A holocaust survivor, Frances spearheaded efforts in the US to record survivor stories, creating the interviewing protocols that are used widely today.

The Fabri Literary Prize seeks to discover deserving but underappreciated works of fiction and to see them published for the general book trade. The Fabri Literary Prize is open to unpublished novels written for educated adults with broad interests. Excluded from consideration are books for children or young adults and books that are focused on the religious market.

Each prizewinner receives a publishing contract with a $10,000 advance and a $5,000 marketing budget. The winning novels are published in either hard cover or trade paperback editions by Boaz Publishing Company and distributed to the book trade by New Harbinger Publications.

The Fabri Literary Prize is awarded twice each year; open for entries from January 1 through February 28 with the winner announced May 31 and again from July1 through August 31, with the winner announces November 30. There are no fees to enter.

The Fabri Literary Prize is a juried contest. The judges of the inaugural prize were Jim Krusoe, author of Blood Lake and Other Stories, Tara Ison, author of The List, and Cyndi Hughes, book editor and director of the Kansas Book Festival.

To learn more about the Fabri Literary Prize or to submit your novel, click here.