Coexistence: Stories

Superbly rendered portraits of modern indigeneity from the acclaimed author of A Minor Chorus. A grieving mother calls out to her faraway son. A student forgoes the lurid appeal of dating apps in exchange for a painter’s love. The anonymous voices of queer native men converge amid violent eroticism. A man just out of prison balances the uneasy weight of family and freedom, while a professor returns home to conduct research only to be haunted by the ghost of a nun.

The stories and voices in Billy-Ray Belcourt’s debut story collection, Coexistence, are buoyed by philosophical undergirding, poetic demand, and the complex relationship between aesthetics and ethics. Belcourt pirouettes through the short-story form in his signature staccato voice, imagining a range of characters from all walks of native life. He is an expert in celebrating the ways indigenous peoples make total conquest impossible.