mom .’ There are so many parallels to her life and my life .
And very similarly with Blood Sisters . It was me wanting to look back at the environmental damage that had been done to where I was from ; the missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis ; my own relationship of being white-presenting Cherokee and what that means to me ; and just getting back to Oklahoma . When I wrote a lot of Blood Sisters , I wasn ’ t able to go home . I wrote it during COVID and so for the first time in my life , I wasn ’ t returning home to Oklahoma . It was the longest I ’ d ever been away . I missed it . I missed my family . And so writing about it not only helped me grapple with some of those issues , but also brought me home even if it was just in my mind . Why was it important to you to work the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women into Blood Sisters ? The epigraph is something that ’ s said in a lot of Native communities : “ What happens to the land happens to the women .” Anytime I ’ m writing a story about the land , I look at the relationship that people have to it , and there was this larger crisis happening that really reflected how we treated the land and reflected what had happened in northeastern Oklahoma , which is now one of the most toxic places in America .
And there ’ s a crime that opens the book that ’ s inspired by a real crime that happened during my senior year of high school ; two girls went missing and their bodies were never recovered . And the family is just searching and that is the story . So often in these cases of missing and murdered [ Indigenous girls ], families are not believed , girls are not searched for — heaven forbid they have a criminal record — and there ’ s just not a value put on their lives . And that ’ s the story of America and Native people , right ? That ’ s the story of not putting value on their lives , trying to erase their culture , moving them away from homelands , things like that . It just made sense that this is a modern crisis and a modern problem that is indicative of larger issues that have been going on since Colonialism started . Since this is our ‘ Books ,’ issue , I have to ask : Do you have any reading recommendations ? There ’ s an amazing anthology out right now called Never Whistle at Night . It ’ s Indigenous dark fiction . There are twenty-eight different authors in this anthology , and it ’ s all Indigenous fiction from all over the continent .
Q & A : Prescription for Pain by Philip Eil Providence-based journalist Philip Eil spent years looking into his father ’ s former classmate , the high school valedictorian Paul Volkman . Volkman became a doctor who later came under fire for malpractice suits , then ran a “ pill mill ” scheme in southern Ohio . His pain clinics prescribed opioid painkillers that were linked to the overdose deaths of at least thirteen patients . Read a Q-and-A with the author about his book Prescription for Pain ( to be released in April 2024 from Steerforth Press ): RIMonthly . com / prescription _ for _ pain
Rhody Roundup
Cozy up on a chill winter day with one of these top Rhode Island reads . By Lauren Clem
HISTORICAL FICTION Daughters of Nantucket by Julie Gerstenblatt Julie Gerstenblatt ’ s Daughters of Nantucket takes us back to 1846 and the forces that held sway on an island isolated by the sea . In the midst of the Great Fire of 1846 , three women of very different backgrounds take action to reclaim their futures and rebuild from the ashes of what lay before . Gerstenblatt is a Barrington resident who ’ s vacationed in Nantucket since the 1970s .
CRIME City of Dreams by Don Winslow In City on Fire , the first novel of the Danny Ryan trilogy , Don Winslow drew on the rich mob lore of his home state to create a gritty thriller , a classic Irish versus Italian crime war with touches of Greek tragedy . In this anticipated follow-up , our namesake hero has escaped Rhode Island for the sunny shores of California only to discover trouble is not quite at bay . Catch up on the action before the debut of the third book , City in Ruins , later this year .
SCIENCE The Big 100 : The New World of Super-Aging by William J . Kole What if half of everyone you knew lived to be 100 ? In his first book , Rhode Island-based journalist and author Bill Kole explores the world of super-aging , and what our increasing longevity means for a grayer future . Along the way , he talks to experts on aging , investigates the racial age gap and recounts the story of his grandmother , a child of Sicilian immigrants who lived to be 103 .
MEMOIR The Couscous Chronicles by Azzedine T . Downes Before he was president of a global nonprofit for animal welfare , Azzedine Downes was a teacher and Peace Corps administrator traipsing through countries in Europe and the Middle East . An American Muslim with Irish roots ( who eventually settled in Providence ), Downes shares his tale of a life lived between cultures , including the love story with his wife that began as an arranged marriage in Morocco .
CHILDREN ’ S Firefighters to the Rescue ! by R . W . Alley Parents who grew up on Richard Scarry ’ s Busytown books will adore the first volume in R . W . Alley ’ s Breezy Valley at Work series , depicting colorful animal characters on a mission to protect their bustling town . Future books featuring hospital and construction workers are also planned . A prolific illustrator best known for his work on Paddington Bear titles , Alley lives in Rhode Island with his wife and fellow children ’ s book author , Zoë B . Alley . 🆁
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