The Bird is Gone

A lost pipe holds the power to rewrite a nation.

Cleverly blending alternate history, mystery, and indigenous resurgence, Stephen Graham Jones’s The Bird Is Gone unfolds in a transformed Great Plains where a visionary conservation act has made the land truly “Indian again.” Fourteen years later, a motley crew led by LP Deal converges in a bowling alley within Indian Territories, on a quest for a forgotten treaty pipe—sealed in a locker and flushed into oblivion—that could return all of America to Indigenous hands. Surreal, suspenseful, and richly original, this manifesto of resistance challenges readers to reconsider power, history, and the stakes of reclaiming a stolen world.