I picked up this book entirely based on the strength of Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty—a novel that’s hard to categorize, summarize, or explain. This is a little easier to place: it’s a 1920s crime noir detective mystery set in an alternate version of the US where the Native American population retained power due to a less virulent strain of smallpox brought by the colonizers. The result is three distinct regions: a version of the US we recognize, a southern area run by the KKK, and Cahokia—a Native American region along the Mississippi or Missouri (I admit, geography isn’t my strong suit).
The murder mystery at the heart of the story—a ritualistic killing that quickly becomes more complex—anchors the narrative, but the real fascination here is how Spufford, as a non-American (he’s British), navigates this alternative history. There’s a certain boldness in how he approaches the delicate and deeply fraught themes of colonialism, race, and power dynamics. In some ways, Spufford might have felt more freedom to explore this speculative history precisely because he’s not American, with a bit of distance from the tangled politics of US identity. His perspective is not burdened by the same personal stakes that might come with writing about America’s past as an American, especially a Native American or someone directly impacted by this history.
This isn’t to undermine the importance of #ownvoices—I believe and support the push to center authors from minority cultures, honestly even if they aren’t writing about their own experiences. But my time in the UK, especially a recent book launch I attended for Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst (where he spoke with Tash Aw, a Malaysian author, about choosing to write a half-Burmese half-British main character in the first person) brought up interesting notions of how perspectives shift ‘across the pond.’ There seems to be a different comfort level in engaging with these kinds of speculative, cross-cultural narratives in the UK, where the legacy of empire creates a whole other complex, reflective distance (in the hands of better authors. Plenty of empire apologists to be found here as well).
Don’t get me wrong, I think the result is fascinating—a richly imagined world with compelling, grounded characters, all wrapped in the smoky allure of a noir mystery. I’d be remiss not to mention how the architecture of Cahokia plays a role in the story as well, with all those imposing facades and hidden plazas that suddenly team with protestors melting out of shadows that make for the perfect noir-y background.