Episode 25 – Carved in Stone by Kathleen Eagle

SO.  Y’all.  Happy Thanksgiving and also decolonize yourself!

We were originally going to do two books for the holiday, one racist piece of shit and one good one full of nuanced representation.  But on further discussion, we decided that it’s just not okay for us to do a big episode where we give one of these racist-ass books the full yuk-yuk treatment.  So we combined it into a big Superspecial!!! where we discuss the history of Native Americans in romance in general and First Love, Wild Love by Madeline Baker and also do a more traditional second half where we do our usual treatment of Carved in Stone by Kathleen Eagle.

Courtney did a great piece we pushed out earlier this month on the history of “Indian” romances, particularly their covers, here.

Last year, we did cover a racist book, and we won’t do that again – but our post for it was still quite good, and includes a playlist of Native American music, lists of romances by indigenous authors, foodways talk, and more!  Check that out here.

We loved Carved in Stone and we also love Kathleen Eagle!  She isn’t Native American herself, but her husband and children are Sioux and also she has a great picture of herself and her husband visiting Deadwood in one of those sepia toned saloon dress-up things which I feel you need to see:

I still feel that “fake Western brothel photos” are folk art Glamour Shots.

We also made a banger playlist inspired by the silly-ass country songs they talk about when the characters are at a bar – we both are well aware of humorous (sometimes satirical!) country, but had to be introduced to “I’m Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home”. So this is a gift we also give to you.