Big Chief, Jon Hickey’s gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past.
In This Spotlight On Big Chief
About Big Chief
Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe’s Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack’s reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack’s estranged sister and Mitch’s former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go—and what they will sacrifice—to win it all.
But when an accident claims the life of Mitch’s mentor, a power broker in the reservation’s political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation’s descent into violence.
Thrilling and timely, Big Chief is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging—to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance.
Praise for Big Chief
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by Debutiful, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and LitHub • Publishers Weekly Writer to Watch for Spring 2025
“A compelling and strong Native American novel about politics and power and how far some people will go to hold on to what they have.”—Brandon Hobson, author of National Book Award finalist Where the Dead Sit Talking
“Deliciously ruthless and absolutely huge, Big Chief unleashes the Shakespearean realities of Passage Rouge with seismic ambition and brilliance. Prepare to relish every dice roll, partisan jab, and monkey wrench thrown in this all-out showdown from maestro Jon Hickey—a colossal novel of and for our time.”—Cody Caetano, author of Half-Bads in White Regalia
“Jon Hickey throws the reader in the backseat of a tricked out F350 and takes them for a wild ride across the Rez following a J. Crew NDN, a Chief who’s in over his head, and their crew. This is a must-read as Hickey brings us into the chaos and catastrophes that the colonial imposed electoral system creates in Indigenous communities but also shows the reader how community, a sense of belonging, and family is what really matters in the end. This is a book that you won’t put down until the last ballot is counted.”—Conor Kerr, author of Prairie Edge
“Big Chief is an explosive exploration of power and its corrupting effect. Jon Hickey takes us on a feverish journey in the days leading up to a hotly contested tribal election, where loyalties are being sharply tested, and the lines between right and wrong have become blurred. I found myself holding my breath as I turned the page—as the characters struggled to figure out how to be on the right side of history. This book is an astounding achievement.”—Vanessa Chan, nationally bestselling author of The Storm We Made
“Taut, timely, and brimming with suspense, Big Chief questions our notions of power and morality, holding a mirror to our crooked, calculating world. This is a monumental debut.”—Kirstin Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Counterfeit
“An instant American classic! Out of the dark fields of the republic, Mitch Caddo rises to great heights, only to lose his soul in the process. But like all great American novels, there is hope—in the end, there is always hope. Jon Hickey locks arms with Alexie, Silko, Orange, Erdrich, and others who are taking back a landscape that was once all theirs.”—Ernesto Quiñonez, author of Bodega Dreams
“Big Chief features all the twisty chessmanship—the familial feuds, the financial games, the political maneuvering—of Succession and sets it against the backdrop of Indian country. Jon Hickey has written one hell of an addictive and important debut novel.”—Benjamin Percy, author of The Ninth Metal and Red Moon
“Big Chief is bursting with tribal politics, old family entanglements, and is simply put, one hell of a story. For fans of Erdrich, you can’t go wrong.”—Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse and The Haunting of Room 904
“We’ve been waiting for the great Native American political novel, and here it is—a gripping story that illustrates the intricacies and intrigues of reservation politics. The book examines Native sovereignty, power, and corruption at the fictional Passage Rouge Nation, as well as issues of Indigenous community, family, and identity. Not to mention, Jon Hickey creates fantastically compelling characters and weaves in a healthy dose of Native humor. A tremendous debut.”—David Heska Wanbli Weiden, award-winning author of Winter Counts
“Big Chief is explosive. It’s a political novel in the best way possible: the way Rachel Kushner’s Telex from Cuba or Mavis Gallant’s Paris Notebooks are. Hickey’s novel shows us what unease in a particular body politic looks like, what it feels like.”—George McCormick, author of Salton Sea
“All politics is local meets all unhappy families in this comical, humane, and profound debut—a deftly observed meditation on what it means to be a brother, a son, a leader, and a man. Jon Hickey is a newly minted master of slapstick American misery, and Big Chief a big-hearted book, a big mood for the big mess we’re all in.”—J. Robert Lennon, author of Hard Girls and Buzz Kill
“This is a new American classic. Hickey’s book is tightly written while being an expansive look into Indigenous politics. If you only read one book this year, make it this book.”—Debutiful
About Jon Hickey, Author of Big Chief
Jon Hickey earned his MFA at Cornell University and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and the Sewanee Writers Conference, and he is an enrolled member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. His short fiction has appeared in Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast Online, Virginia Quarterly Review, Meridian, and The Madison Review. Jon lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons. Big Chief is his debut novel.
You can connect with Jon Hickey on their website, and on Facebook and Instagram.
Source: Publisher
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9780771015496
Pub Date 4/8/2025
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