In Morgan Talty’s debut collection of stories, Night of the Living Rez (Tin House, July 5), a young man named David navigates a tough existence in the impoverished Panawahpskek (Penobscot) Nation of Maine while wondering how on Earth he is ever going to leave the place. Drugs and death are constant presences in David’s life, but so, too, is the hope that somehow things will get better—or, as his mother tells him, “We dug the hole, and now we fill it.” Talty, whose book is on our list of the best fiction of the year, answered questions about it and his writing life by email.

What was the impetus that started you working on the book?

I really wanted to write a story collection. I had a few stories told from David’s point of view, and so I set out with the idea of moving chronologically through his life. I wrote about a dozen stories, but the book was, in all honesty, just terrible! Some of the stories were good, but as a collection it didn’t “work.” I shelved the project and told myself to go on and write something different. So I did. Or so I thought.

I wrote “Burn,” and in writing it I was convinced the protagonist was not David. But the more I resisted, the more I found myself thinking about him. Eventually, I gave in and called him “Dee,” and at that very moment—literally—I asked myself, Is this David all grown up? That revitalized the collection I had shelved.

Who is the ideal reader for Night of the Living Rez, and where would they be reading it?

In my mind, the ideal reader is and has always been someone who has felt excluded from literature. Not necessarily due to representation, though that’s a part of it, but really due to the accessibility of the stories themselves. I wanted readers who normally don’t read; I wanted readers who do read; and I wanted readers who do nothing but read. I really paid strong attention to that first group, because I was like that as a child and young adult. I found literature to be inaccessible in a way.

Were you able to do live events for the book this year? Any memorable highlights?

Yes! I was very fortunate to be able to do live events. As for memorable highlights: There are so many, but I’ll choose one. So far, I’ve read in three churches. In Belfast, Maine, I did an event in a church with around 120 people, and right up front there was a small table with a beautiful arrangement of flowers. Next to it, a framed picture of myself. I told everybody to turn their attention to it and then asked if I was dead or alive.

What book (or books) published in 2022 were among your favorites?

Nuclear Family by Joseph Han; A Calm & Normal Heart by Chelsea T. Hicks; If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery; and Sinking Bell: Stories by Bojan Louis.

Finally, what emerging Native American writers should readers be paying attention to? And what classic Native American books do you find yourself going back to?

Definitely Chelsea T. Hicks. Her work is so smart and so vital. Reading her book, I was finally able to articulate so many feelings about being Native that I had had my entire life, but she approaches this transcendence in an accessible way.

I find myself constantly returning to The Lesser Blessed by Richard Van Camp as well as Winter in the Blood by James Welch. Another I return to is N. Scott Momaday and Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko.

Gregory McNamee is a contributing editor.