Indigeneity, Belonging, and the Afterlife of Colonialism: Morgan Talty’s Fire Exit (2024)
Keywords:
Indigenous belonging, Native American legal status, post/colonial Indigenous history, tribal blood quantumAbstract
Following his first success with the story collection Night of the Living Rez (2022), the Native American writer Morgan Talty published his debut novel Fire Exit in 2024, establishing himself as a compelling new Indigenous voice that commands attention. This paper illustrates how, unlike other creative works by contemporary Native American writers, Fire Exit presents a captivating story not only about life on and off the reservation but also about the various personal, legal, and cultural complications of present-day Indigenous belonging within a tribe, particularly the Penobscot of Maine. It offers a narrative of false Indigenous parentage claims, intentionally made to grant the offspring full benefits of tribal belonging based on blood quantum level. It represents a search for a deeper truth beyond the lived realities of Native descent, while exploring in detail the intricate, multilayered meanings of Indigenous belonging and inclusion, postcolonial survival, and tribal blood quantum.
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