An astonishing coming-of-middle-age debut about an Ahkwes hsne man's reluctant return home, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the resonance of love and family, culture and history. Forty-three-year-old Abe Jacobs has been told by his doctors that he's dying--and fast. Having exhausted his doctors' regimens, he begins to contemplate the one path he thought he'd never consider: a healing at the hands of his great uncle Budge Billings. His uncle still lives on the Ahkwes hsne reservation where Abe was raised, so more than two decades after leaving, Abe reluctantly returns home. Budge, a wry, unceremonious, recovered alcoholic, is not the least bit sentimental about his gift. Which is good, because Abe's last-ditch attempt to be healed is just that--a fragile hope, one of which he is thoroughly skeptical. But no healing is possible without hope or knowing oneself. To find both faith and himself again, Abe must confront how leaving the reservation at eighteen has affected him,
