Kellams: Andrea L. Rogers' 2022 book of short stories, "Man Made Monsters," was a young adult collection of monsters, both sympathetic and terrifying. Her 2024 picture book, "Chooch Helped," was about an older sibling accepting a younger brother's desire to be included. That book was awarded a Caldecott Medal.
Her new novel, "Death in the Tallgrass," is both about siblings and about frightening circumstances. Though not supernatural, "Death in the Tallgrass" uses narrative and occasional interstitials to explore atrocities in eastern Oklahoma. She'll talk about the book Tuesday night at Underbrush Books in downtown Rogers.
Yesterday afternoon, Andrea L. Rogers came to the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studio to talk about "Death in the Tallgrass," a novel she wanted rooted in facts.
Rogers: I wanted to touch on, I mean, facts, Cherokee history. And also the very first chapter of this is kind of an homage to Ruth Muskrat Bronson, because back in the early 1900s, she was a, she's Cherokee. She's a student, Ruth Muskrat. She goes off to seminary in the northeast and she publishes a story. And it's kind of a horror story, kind of. And it's the early 1900s.
And so that is the very first chapter, about Snake, Oklahoma, and Gustavus Snake, who's a bad Indian agent, although maybe even saying Indian agent and bad is redundant. But so it's sort of based on a story that she wrote and kind of a retelling of that, but also setting up the atmosphere for what's going to happen, what has happened, what's already happened and what's been hidden, I guess, what the grass has grown over, right?
And so those interstitials include some Cherokee history, some Cherokee culture, some Cherokee stories and an actual history. Things that have happened. But I didn't want to do it in a way that was didactic. I didn't want it to, it's not nonfiction. Reading historical fiction is not the way you learn history. But I wanted to include that, but not do it in a way that was didactic, not do it in a preachy sort of history teaching way, but doing it in more of a storytelling voice.
Because what I saw with the character Cynthia is like how she grows and who she's going to become. And in the end, she's kind of a storyteller, right? And so those pieces in between are sort of hearken to that aspect of her personality and what she's learning about.
Kellams: As you mentioned, those interstitials that are in between the narrative remind us about the murder, the destruction of culture, the attempted elimination of culture, rape of a land, all the horrible things that happened not just in Oklahoma, but what brought Cherokee and Osage and Muskogee to Oklahoma.
Rogers: Mhm.
Kellams: But you didn't set it at that time. You set it in 1968. How did you decide to do that?
Rogers: That was, I was born in 1969, so I guess I was conceived in 1968. So my husband was born in 1968.
And so when I first started working on this book, I had just learned about what had happened to the Osage in the 1920s and the reign of terror. And it was also just a period where I was learning a whole lot about 1968. And so I was actually working at the Tulsa Public Library. And I think even before that, I was going upstairs and I'd go through the microfilm and I would read the microfiche, like what was going on, both in the 1920s, the early 1900s, but then also in 1968.
And that period was so fraught. And there were so many advances that were made, I think politically, legally, as far as Indian civil rights, African American civil rights. But it was also a period where those things didn't necessarily have to happen. I mean, those things could have not happened. And they did happen because people like Martin Luther King risked their life to make these things happen for people. People are doing sit-ins, people are protesting.
And it was a year that kind of set us on a trajectory that we still seem to be in and that people are still pushing back against now. And so 1968 was just, it was a really important year and there was so much, there were strides made, but there was also violence, right?
And there was so much. The country was really in a civil war, a cultural civil war, a historic, I mean, it really was in a civil war, even if it wasn't a declared civil war, because people were trying to advance their own abilities. And they had to make that stuff legal in order to be able to do that. And so laws did have to be passed, because justice wasn't just happening. It wasn't just organically everything is going to be made right eventually. People had to fight for that.
And so remembering that the strides that we made didn't happen on their own and that people did fight for those and people did risk their lives and people did die. And the Vietnam War.
Kellams: Some reveals in this book that are genuine and well earned. And a couple of them are tough.
Rogers: Mhm.
Kellams: Did you think about how we, the reader, would take them?
Rogers: I did, I did. Because I will be honest, when I first started writing this book in 1994, it was at a period where there were not a lot of books about Native people. There were certainly not a lot of books about contemporary Native families.
And I wanted my Junie B. Jones. I wanted, was it, Rigsby? And I wanted my Beverly Cleary stories. It's like, why don't I have a family that I can look at that's a good Native family, because so much of it that was being published was really centered on trauma, poverty, porn, alcoholism. And honestly, those were not the experiences I had growing up. And so I had a great dad. My dad was wonderful. He was an artist too.
And so then I write the story, I think I'm done with it, like, oh gosh, 2001 or something. And then I realized that because I had centered what had happened to the Osage in the reign of terror, it's not my story to tell. And so I put it away.
But then I had read Angie Debo's "And Still the Waters Run." And so I knew that the same things happened to other tribes. The Choctaw, the Cherokee, the Creek, the Freedmen. I mean, the Freedmen were really targeted because they really had very little protection. Even the freedmen who did get land and allotments had very little protection, whereas the federal government was supposed to be trying to protect the interests of Native people. But the freedmen were just kind of on their own. So they really were hit hard by the greed and theft early.
And so that was a story that also had not been told. And so luckily, or not, well, so we did get "Killers of the Flower Moon." And so people did learn about what had happened to the Osage. And that was terrible. And it happened to the tribe pretty much, the whole tribe was impacted because of the way they held their mineral rights.
Now, because of the way the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek held their mineral rights, well, we were forced into allotment, which meant that people who were on the original rolls would get a portion of land. And so what that meant is it was just the luck of the draw. So if you happen to draw land that was valuable in minerals or in oil, you were more likely to die. And so it was not going to benefit you. You were not going to have generational wealth. It was going to get taken from you in some way.
And so that was a story that hadn't really been told, and told in a way that's appropriate for people to learn earlier, because we all have these anchor beliefs and it's really hard to push back against those once you've learned something as a child. Even if it's incorrect, it's really hard to make a correction later. And so it seemed like a story that needed told in a way, so that it's not just like a surprise when you're 30, right? It's like, this was always true. Check my facts. That was always thus.
Kellams: I'm always confused about, this is quote unquote young adult. Because it's a novel to me.
Rogers: Yes. Yeah. And so that's one of those things that like genres are decided by markets and your publisher decides what it will be. And sometimes it's based on like, it's this thick. And so right now it's kind of considered middle grade.
But you've read my other stuff. I mean, even my young adult stuff, adults can read it. I write for everybody, right? I just try and make sure that I write in a way that doesn't harm young people. And this was the most important thing to me.
Kellams: And but you respect them.
Rogers: Yeah, yeah.
Kellams: This is not written down, right? They're smart.
Rogers: Yeah.
Kellams: What I also loved, Cynthia is our narrator. I wouldn't so much say she's the protagonist, though. I love that she is, as you said earlier, a storyteller, because other people in the story propel it, both in the past and the present.
Rogers: Yeah. Yeah. And that was a hard thing to navigate, because you don't want her to be boring, right? You don't want, she's not just a talking head. But I mean, so she's very much a part of it, but she's also telling everybody else's story. And she's seeing more than one individual perspective.
I think because when you're a kid, and I think we talked about this before, when you're a kid or a sibling, it's like you're watching this thing happen and your relationship with your parents is different from your sister's relationship with their parents based on how old they are or just personalities and just who you are as a person.
And so for her to be the middle, she's the middle, right? She's the middle child. She's not the oldest, she's not the youngest, so she's aware of everything and she's sympathetic, I think, really to everybody.
Kellams: Quite the achievement.
Rogers: Thank you so much. Thank you. And isn't it pretty?
Rogers: Oh my gosh.
Kellams: It's not just pretty. It feels good.
Rogers: Yes.
Kellams: Your books always are packaged so well.
Rogers: Levine Querido does make, they make beautiful books. What can I say? I've been very lucky.
Kellams: So, thanks so much for coming in.
Rogers: Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
Kellams: Andrea L. Rogers' new novel is "Death in the Tallgrass," and she'll discuss the book Tuesday night at Underbrush Books in downtown Rogers. Doors open Tuesday night at 6 p.m. The discussion is free.
She'll also be at the Bentonville Public Library Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. in conversation with author Ayana Gray about her new novel, "Hawk & Sparrow." That conversation also free and open to the public at the Bentonville Public Library Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. The conversation I had with Andrea Rogers took place yesterday afternoon in the Carver Center for Public Radio.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
