Ghost Dances

A gifted young writer takes a singular journey back to his native Midwestern American Plains.

Growing up in South Dakota, Josh Garrett-Davis always knew he would leave. But as a young adult, he kept going back – in dreams and reality and by way of books. With this beautifully written narrative about a seemingly empty but actually rich and complex place, he has reclaimed his childhood, his unusual family – and the Great Plains.

Among the subjects and people who bring his Plains to life are the destruction and resurgence of the American bison; his great-great-grandparents’ twenty-year sojourn in Nebraska as homesteaders; Native American ‘Ghost Dancers’ who attempted to ward off destruction by supernatural means before the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee; the political allegory to be found in The Wizard of Oz; and current attempts by ecologists to ‘rewild’ the Plains.

GHOST DANCES is a fluid combination of memoir and history and reportage that reminds us that our roots matter – and might even be inspiring and fascinating.

Author Biography

Josh Garrett-Davis has an MFA from Columbia and is currently a PhD student in American history at Princeton.