# Read the first page of Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson Read the opening of Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson free, no signup. A foster teen recalls a girl's death years later. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/where-the-dead-sit-talking-brandon-hobson - Genre: Literary fiction - Year: 2018 - ISBN: 9781616958886 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781616958886&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781616958886 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781616958886 ## The opening I have been unhappy for many years now. I have seen in the faces of young people walking down the street a resemblance to people who died during my childhood. The period in my life of which I am about to tell involves a late night in the winter of 1989, when I was fifteen years old and a certain girl died in front of me. Her name was Rosemary Blackwell. It happened when she and I were living with a family in foster care, and though the details are complicated, I still think about her often. I'm alive and she's dead. I should tell you this is not a confession, nor is it a way to untangle the roots and find meaning: Rosemary is dead. People live and die. People kill themselves or they get killed. The rest of us live on, burdened by what is inescapable. WE LEFT CHEROKEE COUNTY when I was young, and like our ancestors, my mother and I traveled out of the land with our clothes and food in sacks. We traveled through the fierce shreds of a winter storm, following a highway north into the night. We drove slowly, ice spattering the windshield. My mother talked quietly to herself, both hands on the wheel. Maybe it was in our Cherokee blood. My great-grandfather had once traveled alone to the desert plains to meet spirits, fire and water, the two gods of hunting. He was lonely when his wife died and sought isolation, desiring a communion with nature. For food he hunted buffalo and deer, built a scaffold of poles and used it to dry fruit in the sun. He slaughtered hogs. In his solitude he was strong and worked hard, seeking the peace of his ancestors. He built fires in the night and spread ashes on his chest. He slept in the branches of bitter oaks. My mother told me these stories about my great-grandfather while driving us to Tulsa in her El Camino. Like him, I too believed in the spirit world. Like him, I tried to see the spirits in everything around me: the trees, the open plains, the sky. I searched for them in clouds and rain. I looked into the faces of strangers and questioned whether they were messengers for me. I waited to hear their voices, as my great-grandfather had heard in his dreams. Voices that told secrets, foretold the future. Voices that brought messages. My great-grandfather claimed to have met a beautiful spirit woman. He was exhausted from traveling and welcomed the sight of her. She wore long braided hair that hung down to her breasts. She appeared to him in the desert and brought him quill baskets full of food. Her eyes were fire. She held my great-grandfather’s gaze, kissed his hands, and fell into a long, deep sleep with him. My mother and I were alone, too. My father had left us, packed up his jeep and headed west to find God. I never knew him. My mother said he joined a group of missionaries and went down to Mexico. He’d had a couple of other kids before he married my mother, but I didn’t know them and it didn’t matter. We never heard from him again. I was their only child. They named me Sequoyah, meaning sparrow, after the great teacher who developed the Cherokee language. My mother said she should’ve named me Yellow Sky, because I was always there to bring her light, like the dawn. Back then I was too young to understand her drunkenness. When she left me alone and went out at night, I fell asleep in her bed, waking later to the noise of her coming into the room. “Go to sleep,” she told me, pulling off her boots. She collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep in her clothes. ## Books with a similar feel - [Foster by Claire Keegan](https://uncovered.ink/read/foster-claire-keegan.md) - [The Law of Lines by Hye-Young Pyun](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-law-of-lines-hye-young-pyun.md) - [A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro](https://uncovered.ink/read/a-pale-view-of-hills-kazuo-ishiguro.md) - [Wellness by Nathan Hill](https://uncovered.ink/read/wellness-nathan-hill.md) - [Boy's Life by Robert McCammon](https://uncovered.ink/read/boys-life-robert-mccammon.md) - [The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-death-of-vivek-oji-akwaeke-emezi.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.