Trials and Tribulations of Dirty Shame, Oklahoma beautifully showcases Comanche gothic literature, a new genre in Indigenous literature, at its creative best. In the tradition of The Iliad and Paradise Lost, this book is an epic poem of heroic and biblical proportions. Three Indigenous young people discover that the Holy Grail has been on the North American continent for centuries, and in Oklahoma for the last two. Battling both human and supernatural enemies, Velroy, Mia, and Stoney struggle to get the Holy Grail out of Indian Country to save their families and community and bring true peace back to their ordinary, Dirty Shame lives.
Sy Hoahwah has written poems that tear down the bridges between the Comanche and America. He travels the warrior road. His inheritance and obligation is to protect and guard his peoples' way. Hoahwah's wry sense of justice and literary knowledge paints a new road on the tapestry of Indigenous resistance.--Lance Henson, author of The Missing Bead: Poems for the Cheyenne
