Gansworth, Eric

Eric Gansworth, S˙ha-weñ na-saeˀ (Onondaga, Eel Clan), is a writer and visual artist who born and raised in the Tuscarora Nation. His previous books include the YA book Apple: (Skin to the Core), the novels If I Ever Get Out of Here, Extra Indians, and Smoke Dancing: A Novel; and the poetry collection A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function: Poems and Paintings (The Iroquois and Their Neighbors). His work has received a Printz Honor Award, American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award, PEN Oakland Award, and American Book Award, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. With My Good Man (Levine Querido), Gansworth makes the tried-and-true genre of the “bildungsroman” seem a novel. Brian, a 20-something reporter from the nearby Tuscarora reservation, is the only Indigenous writer in the newsroom on the Niagara Cascade’s city desk. But when a mysterious roadside assault lands Tim, the brother of Brian’s mother’s late boyfriend, in the hospital, Brian must pick up the threads of a life he abandoned. The narrative then takes us through his childhood and stories on the reservation. Perhaps more importantly, it takes us through Brian’s attempt to balance himself between Haudenosaunee and American life.