The Backbone of the World

Trespass Collection

By: Stephen Graham Jones

Narrated by: Charlotte Flyte

Length: 1 hr and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

An American Indian woman’s past and future collide in unthinkable ways in this richly imagined short story of deep secrets and Lovecraftian horrors by a New York Times bestselling author.

Millie Two Bears lives alone in a trailer in the heart of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. Since her husband went to jail, she’s been on the outs with the reservation. And it’s not just people she has to contend with. Now the prairie dogs are moving in on her patch of land. When a strange woman comes into Millie’s life, and Millie’s rodent war escalates, a fateful confrontation with vengeance, secrets, and survival is just underfoot.

Stephen Graham Jones’s The Backbone of the World is part of Trespass, a collection of wild stories about animal instincts, human folly, and survival from award-winning, bestselling authors. Read or listen to each in a single sitting.

©2022 Stephen Graham Jones. (P)2022 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good one!

Indigenous folks, prairie dogs, and a bit of horror mixed in a bag of sci-fi. 👍

Insidious in the best ways

It’s a great balance of creepy and real human grief, the end of which I can’t decide if it’s triumphant or sinister ha. I am still thinking about it which the mark of a compelling work

A Curious Story

I wasn't sure what to think when it ended. I played the last few minutes over again and it made more sense. It fully kept my attention. The narration was good. I'm still wrapping my head around this story. For some reason the name Rudyard Kipling comes to mind. - Same category?
For me, it's probably going to be rolling around in my brain for a while for more understanding. Yes, a very curious story and quite different than what I've listened to or read as an adult. The ending, however, wrapped it up for the most part. - Still mulling it over.
I think it was a good story. One has to open the mind for a broader thought process in my opinion, but that's okay. Good job and thank you.

This story? It’s one of the good ones.

This story is a bit of magic. If you ride it—I mean read it—no I do mean ride it—it will take you exactly where you need to be, right to the center of your own self.

What A Great Story

I really enjoyed this short story. Stephen Graham Jones is a fine writer and storyteller. I am currently reading his novel "The Only Good Indians" the hardcover version in print.... I don't think anyone could have narrated this audiobook better than Charlotte Flyte she did an amazing job. Maybe Stephen or someone else will use her in another audiobook. I would like to hear more from her. Recommended if you would like to hear a book about life on the Rez.

wow. this is brilliant.

this just cements how brilliant Jones is. weird and impressive. everyone needs to listen or read this story

Not what I was expecting

The story had a slow start but the ending definitely took me by surprise. The narrator was a little boring but she sounded exactly like I would think millie would sound . If you want to read something or listen to something different this is your book look.

Super weird. Super cool.

Loved the pace and the building of suspense. The ending was worth the read for sure.

Excellent storytelling

I 'discovered' Stephen Graham Jones from the Haunted Nights anthology. His contribution, Dirtmouth, inspired me to explore deeper into his stories. (If you haven't listened to it yet, definitely check it out. Wow.)

The Backbone of the World was my next listen. Beautifully written, it captures the stark rhythm of the land, the tone of life on The Rez and inserts a quirky otherworldliness into the very normal, everyday activities of the main character, Millie Two Bears.

Deceptively quiet, the story wraps itself around you, transporting you right there with Millie, her odd tenant, Frog, and her efforts to evict the prairie dogs that have moved in just the other side of the border of her husband's property. It's a matter of pride. Despite his failings, she doesn't want people thinking her husband didn't care for his land. So they have to go before her husband's family takes over their trailer at the end of the month, now that he's no longer living there. Except...the prairie dogs don't act like prairie dogs.

Charlotte Flyte voices Millie perfectly. Her performance is superb, capturing her age, pragmatism and down to earth attitude. The other characters too. Everyone is distinct and three dimensional, making the entire story step off the page.

Well worth the purchase.

You'll Never Look At Prairie Dogs the Same

Stephen Graham Jones has a knack for forcing his readers to look at the world--and aspects of it--in wholly different ways. The Backbone of the World will have you looking at prairie dogs (of all things) and our perceptions of time differently. If this installment of the Trespass Collection is indicative of what the rest of the stories have in store for me, it'll be one hell of a trip.
Millie Two Bears is a lonely, socially isolated living on property that she's about to lose with her husband in prison and his family breathing down her neck to parcel up the land. When she invites a peculiar stranger to rent the camper on the property, she has no idea what sort of repercussions it'll have and how it ties in with the peculiar prairie dogs plaguing the distant edge of her land...and something growing deep in the earth below.
Jones's knack for taking the seemingly prosaic and transforming it into the mysterious and sinister is on full display. The simple reservation life of a woman with all-too-familiar troubles gets upended as her everyday environment becomes increasingly unsettling.
Charlotte Flyte's narration of Millie's story is superb, and she makes the listener feel as if they're hearing the story from the woman living it.