Name: Mae Erceg's review of The Removed: a Novel by Brandon Hobson
Item: The Removed: a Novel
Rating: 4
Author: Mae Erceg

Brandon Hobson

Steeped in Cherokee myths and history, a novel about a fractured family reckoning with the tragic death of their son long ago--from National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson In the fifteen years since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting, the Echota family has been suspended in private grief. The mother, Maria, increasingly struggles to manage the onset of Alzheimer's in her husband, Ernest. Their adult daughter, Sonja, leads a life of solitude, punctuated only by spells of dizzying romantic obsession. And their son, Edgar, fled home long ago, turning to drugs to mute his feelings of alienation. With the family's annual bonfire approaching--an occasion marking both the Cherokee National Holiday and Ray-Ray's death, and a rare moment in which they openly talk about his memory--Maria attempts to call the family together from their physical and emotional distances once more. But as the bonfire draws near, each of them feels a strange blurring of the boundary between normal life and the spirit world. Maria and Ernest take in a foster child who seems to almost miraculously keep Ernest's mental fog at bay. Sonja becomes dangerously fixated on a man named Vin, despite--or perhaps because of--his ties to tragedy in her lifetime and lifetimes before. And in the wake of a suicide attempt, Edgar finds himself in the mysterious Darkening Land: a place between the living and the dead, where old atrocities echo. Drawing deeply on Cherokee folklore, The Removed seamlessly blends the real and spiritual to excavate the deep reverberations of trauma--a meditation on family, grief, home, and the power of stories on both a personal and ancestral level.

The Removed: a Novel

Mae Erceg

Lamia Hajani

Written by enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma Brandon Hobson, The Removed follows a family fifteen years after the loss of one of their own, Ray Ray, who was shot and killed by a police officer. There's a lot of folklore interwoven into this novel, which is probably why I did not enjoy it all that much - the line between realism and fantasy blurred often, and I was confused throughout the novel. I would have probably DNFed it later on had it not been short enough for me to finish.

Overall, I'm giving it 3 stars, because the story held my interest enough. I became invested in a lot of the characters - the foster child named Wyatt who seems to be Ray Ray incarnate, Ernest, the patriarch with Alzheimer's, Edgar, the brother with an addiction who is lost. I found myself confused about what time period the book takes place in - we know that Facebook and smartphones exist, but other elements make it feel like the book takes place in the 70's. But I think that the Riverdale-type feeling is effective in this story.

I'm glad to have read The Removed, because Indigenous voices are important and I like to diversify my reading. However, I think it's a tough read, and I'd be surprised if it rates over a 3.5 once it releases.

Thank you to NetGalley, Ecco and Brandon Hobson for providing me an ARC of this book to read before its release.

Celeste Richardson

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher, Ecco, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Actual rating: 2.5 stars, rounded up.

There aren’t enough novels out there written from a Native American perspective. I try to read them whenever I do come across them, but I have yet to find one that I truly love. I was hoping that The Removed would finally break that cycle and be something that resonated deeply enough for me to add it to my list of favorites. After all, this book was written by a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and, while I’m not an enlisted member, I’m part Cherokee and have always been fascinated by and wanted to learn more about that portion of my heritage. Unfortunately, while I love the premise and the inclusion of Cherokee mythology and some of the lore surrounding the Trail of Tears, something about this book just didn’t click with me.

There are four main perspectives, and each of them is told in the first person. For some reason, this writing decision made it harder for me to connect with the characters, though it should have done the opposite. And while I understand that everyone handles grief differently, the decisions two of these characters made didn’t make any sense to me, which made them even more difficult for me to empathize with. I also found the prose itself very stilted, with no natural rhythm to the writing, which was another reason I had a difficult time connecting with the story. This doesn’t mean that the writing was bad. It just means that the style Hobson utilizes doesn’t resonate with me.

I love the idea of this book. I love the mythology, and the cultural historical context. But unfortunately, this book just wasn’t for me. However, I think there are a lot of people out there who are going to love this book, and I’m interested to see what others think.

Kerry Kalinoski

The only way I know how to describe this book is when your teachers in grade school made you read a book to learn a lesson but you couldn’t learn a lesson cause the book made no sense. I had no idea what was going on for most of it and honestly most of the story could’ve been an imagination and I wouldn’t have known. With that being said I was still really invested in the characters even though they were weird and super messed up I wanted them to get their lives back together so the author could make me care about them I guess?

“Brandon Hobson has given us a haunted work, full of voices old and new. It is about a family’s reckoning with loss and injustice, and it is about a people trying for the same. The journey of this family’s way home is full—in equal measure—of melancholy and love. The Removed is spirited, droll, and as quietly devastating as rain lifting from earth to sky.” —Tommy Orange, author of There There A RECOMMENDED BOOK FROM USA Today * O, the Oprah Magazine * AARP * Alma * Biblio Lifestyle * Publishers Weekly Steeped in Cherokee myths and history, a novel about a fractured family reckoning with the tragic death of their son long ago—from National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson In the fifteen years since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting, the Echota family has been suspended in private grief. The mother, Maria, increasingly struggles to manage the onset of Alzheimer’s in her husband, Ernest. Their adult daughter, Sonja, leads a life of solitude, punctuated only by spells of dizzying romantic obsession. And their son, Edgar, fled home long ago, turning to drugs to mute his feelings of alienation. With the family’s annual bonfire approaching—an occasion marking both the Cherokee National Holiday and Ray-Ray’s death, and a rare moment in which they openly talk about his memory—Maria attempts to call the family together from their physical and emotional distances once more. But as the bonfire draws near, each of them feels a strange blurring of the boundary between normal life and the spirit world. Maria and Ernest take in a foster child who seems to almost miraculously keep Ernest’s mental fog at bay. Sonja becomes dangerously fixated on a man named Vin, despite—or perhaps because of—his ties to tragedy in her lifetime and lifetimes before. And in the wake of a suicide attempt, Edgar finds himself in the mysterious Darkening Land: a place between the living and the dead, where old atrocities echo. Drawing deeply on Cherokee folklore, The Removed seamlessly blends the real and spiritual to excavate the deep reverberations of trauma—a meditation on family, grief, home, and the power of stories on both a personal and ancestral level.

A Novel

The Removed

Lauren Wright

I loved the use of Native American folklore in this book as it offered a super interesting perspective that I don’t usually read in my books. However, my one critique about this book is that there is no real resolution to the plot. Nothing really happens at the end and you are left sort of feeling a little dissatisfied that you followed all these characters for so many chapters and then you are left with no answers or anything. Otherwise, this is a deep, emotional story about a Native American family coming together through tough times and leaning on each other for support. Great book! 

Jessica Guht

What the heck even was this book? There's so much to get into. You have three different storylines that the author tries and fails to weave together. There is no real conclusion even though I think the last few chapters tried to pretend like there was.

The writing was so juvenile. The dialogue was simplistic and unrealistic, and didn't have any of the beauty that I like in a story.

And don't even get me started on the character of Sonja. This is case in point of a man who should not be allowed to write women characters. She was made out to be the "crazy woman" and there's not even a real explanation behind these actions. It's like I read this whole book and don't understand what the point was.

I'm really glad that some people liked this book, but I am not one of them.

Lauren Attaway

I enjoyed this book's introduction to Cherokee myths, even though the writing style and magical max of fiction and reality were not my particular speed.

Elizabeth Hisserich

There’s a lot of ambiguity in this story, but the prose is powerful and the links to Cherokee myths is expertly done. 

Sam Pulliam

The Removed follows a Cherokee family preparing for a bonfire to honor their son and brother, Ray-Ray who was a victim of police brutality fifteen years earlier.
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This isn’t an easy read, not just because of the subject matter, but because the way the story is told isn’t a structure you might be used to if you tend to only read white, western authors. Though this book is only 270 pages, it takes time to process and think about. Without spoiling anything, there are chapters that do not take place in the real world. There are chapters told from the perspective of an ancestor of the family that don’t seem immediately connected to the main story but if you sit and think and maybe watch some interviews and do some outside research, the genius of this book starts to become more apparent. This story draws from Cherokee folklore as well as history. There are discussions about, not only the trauma that has impacted this family in their lifetimes but also intergenerational trauma. I am reminded of Toni Morrison’s Beloved when I think about this book though they are still very different. I really enjoyed it and if you’re in the mood for a book that forces you to take it slow and think, I’d suggest picking this up. Flying through it just because it’s short probably won’t give you the best experience and taking it slow is worth it.
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Please check out own voices reviewers for this book as I am not Indigenous and will certainly have missed some of the nuance and maybe even some important aspects of this story.
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Trigger warnings include:
Death of a family member
Alzheimer’s
Addiction
Police Brutality
Racism
Mention of animal abuse,
Physical abuse
Suicide attempt

Nathan Griffin

This looked interesting, but short of fell short for me. I thought the sections with the folklore were interesting and well-written, but felt the rotating perspective didn't really do it for me. Focusing on just the mom's perspective would've been enough I think for a whole book. But the individual storylines didn't really intersect all that much. For a book that was pretty short, it just felt like I never could get into the characters.

Daryl Houston

Nice lyrical style and an interesting enough story.

Sally Salinas

Christian Beck

Couldn’t connect with the characters and the prose is stilted and simple. I tried hard to get into it but ultimately just think it’s not a good book.

Katie Squires

I wanted to love this book. Reading the synopsis was intriguing but it just fell flat to me. I felt the book just brushed the surface of the characters, I wasn't invested in any of their stories. I wanted to get more character development so I could connect with them more.

Christina Berry 

Heather Margaret

Ryan 

Kayla Higginbotham

Kristen Claiborn

Alli Sweeney

Courtney 

Jordan /

Megan Matesic

"A haunted work, full of voices old and new. It is about a family's reckoning with loss and injustice, and it is about a people trying for the same. The journey of this family's way home is full--in equal measure--of melancholy and love." --Tommy Orange, author of There There A RECOMMENDED BOOK FROM USA Today * O, the Oprah Magazine * Entertainment Weekly * Harper's Bazaar * Buzzfeed * Washington Post * Elle * Parade * San Francisco Chronicle * Good Housekeeping * Vulture * Refinery29 * AARP * Kirkus * PopSugar * Alma * Woman's Day * Chicago Review of Books * The Millions * Biblio Lifestyle * Library Journal * Publishers Weekly * LitHub Steeped in Cherokee myths and history, a novel about a fractured family reckoning with the tragic death of their son long ago--from National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson In the fifteen years since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting, the Echota family has been suspended in private grief. The mother, Maria, increasingly struggles to manage the onset of Alzheimer's in her husband, Ernest. Their adult daughter, Sonja, leads a life of solitude, punctuated only by spells of dizzying romantic obsession. And their son, Edgar, fled home long ago, turning to drugs to mute his feelings of alienation. With the family's annual bonfire approaching--an occasion marking both the Cherokee National Holiday and Ray-Ray's death, and a rare moment in which they openly talk about his memory--Maria attempts to call the family together from their physical and emotional distances once more. But as the bonfire draws near, each of them feels a strange blurring of the boundary between normal life and the spirit world. Maria and Ernest take in a foster child who seems to almost miraculously keep Ernest's mental fog at bay. Sonja becomes dangerously fixated on a man named Vin, despite--or perhaps because of--his ties to tragedy in her lifetime and lifetimes before. And in the wake of a suicide attempt, Edgar finds himself in the mysterious Darkening Land: a place between the living and the dead, where old atrocities echo. Drawing deeply on Cherokee folklore, The Removed seamlessly blends the real and spiritual to excavate the deep reverberations of trauma--a meditation on family, grief, home, and the power of stories on both a personal and ancestral level. "The Removed is a marvel. With a few sly gestures, a humble array of piercingly real characters and an apparently effortless swing into the dire dreamlife, Brandon Hobson delivers an act of regeneration and solace. You won't forget it." --Jonathan Lethem, author of The Feral Detective

Mae Erceg &
The Removed: a Novel by Brandon Hobson

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Mae Erceg &The Removed: a Novel by Brandon Hobson

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The Removed: a Novel by Brandon Hobson