Rebecca Nagle is a journalist and citizen of the Cherokee nation who writes frequently about Native issues for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and other outlets. She brought all her reporting and storytelling skills to bear in her debut book, By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land (Harper/HarperCollins, Sept. 10), which tells the story of a Muscogee man on death row in Oklahoma and his legal appeal, a case that had far-reaching implications for tribal sovereignty in the United States. Nagle answered our questions about the book—one of our best nonfiction books of the year—by email.

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

In the summer of 2017, I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw a post from Muscogee legal scholar Sarah Deer. It was about a court case I had not yet heard of. A man on Oklahoma’s death row was arguing that the state didn’t have jurisdiction to execute him because he was Native and the murder happened on the Muscogee reservation. Oklahoma argued that reservation no longer existed. The case would eventually go all the way to the Supreme Court. After seeing that Facebook post, I became obsessed. I knew whatever the outcome, the case would likely determine the reservation status of my tribe, too. I grew up with stories of how my ancestors sacrificed their lives for the sovereignty and land of Cherokee Nation. What I felt was the possibility that the land they died for would be recognized as Cherokee land for the first time in over a century. It was a visceral sense of justice. I felt it in my blood.

What do you hope readers take away from By the Fire We Carry?

I wrote this book because I believe the American public needs to understand that the legacy of colonization and genocide is not just a problem for Indigenous peoples but a problem for our democracy. Native American history is often treated like a tragic, distant chapter of the American story, and the legal terrain it created like a siloed backwater of American law, but it is foundational. Our inheritance as American citizens is a democracy that is often wildly antidemocratic—a government that has ruled by both consent and by conquest.

What inspired you during the writing of the book? What were you reading, listening to, watching?

A book I thought about a lot while writing was The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. For me, it was a model of how to tell a sweeping history in a storied and personal way. About a year into writing, I read The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich. I love how Erdrich braids different narratives together—something I knew I needed to do in my book’s jump between the past and the present.

What was most challenging about writing this book? And most rewarding?

The research was heavy. To understand what our ancestors survived, I read firsthand accounts of racial violence. Since these accounts were often written by the soldiers, bureaucrats, and even criminals who inflicted that violence, the documents were not only traumatic but racist. But just as often the research was soul-filling. To learn the history of a small church or rural community, I collected photocopies from people’s personal archives. I interviewed a former police officer in my car in a Walmart parking lot. I stood in the places my ancestors stood when they made decisions that changed the course of history.

What book or books published in 2024 were among your favorites?

So far, my favorite books of 2024 are Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, The Resilience Myth by Soraya Chemaly, and I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones. I haven’t read them yet, but I can’t wait to dive into The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.