Cherokee America
About this audiobook
From Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble comes a multilayered, wholly original epic of the American frontier.
A baby, a Black hired hand, a bay horse, a gun, and a neighbor have all gone missing in the same corner of the Cherokee Nation West. Cherokee America Singer, known as Check, is none too pleased with these developments. As a wealthy farmer, the mother of five boys, and the matriarch of her family, she is accustomed to wielding authority. And she’s determined to find out what’s going on.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, complex alliances and simmering race and culture clashes unite and divide the people living on Cherokee lands. Tensions mount and violence escalates, and the long arm of white law encroaches further into Indian Territory. Determined to survive and thrive on their own terms after decades of betrayal and hardship, Check’s family, friends, and neighbors must come together to avenge a crime, outwit federal authorities, and protect their sovereignty.
Inspired by Margaret Verble’s family history and written with dry humor and a lot of heart, Cherokee America is a different kind of Western, one told from a Native American point of view and with a mixed-race woman at its center.
Check—member of a distinguished Cherokee family, daughter of a famous soldier and a slaveholder, wife of an abolitionist—is a necessary, revelatory addition to the literature of the American frontier.
About the author
Margaret Verble is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Her first novel, Maud’s Line, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
Emily Sutton-Smith is a professional actress and one of the cofounders of an Equity theater in central Michigan. Her stage credits include Out of Orbit; Doublewide; Summer Retreat; Too Much, Too Much, Too Many; Miracle on South Division Street; End Days; The Usual: A Musical Love Story; The Smell of the Kill; The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds; Maidens, Mothers and Crones; and Additional Particulars. A New York City native, she has worked onstage at almost all the Equity theaters in Michigan, including the Williamston Theatre, the Purple Rose Theatre, Performance Network Theatre, Tipping Point Theatre, the Detroit Rep, the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, and MeadowBrook Theatre. Emily is a proud member of the Actors' Equity Association and SAG/AFTRA. Her film and TV credits include The Funeral Guest, Gifted Hands, Butterfly Effect: Revelation, The Prince of Motor City, and Nevermore. Emily studied acting at the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York City, and holds a Grande Diploma in Pastry Arts from the French Culinary Institute. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Michigan State University.
