Zooming in on By The Fire We Carry

One of the most powerful passages in By The Fire We Carry is at the very start of the book. Well, it’s almost the start: there's a three-page prologue that's startling in its own right, as Nagle joins in her family tradition of spitting on the grave of Andrew Jackson.

But Chapter 1—titled "The Crime"—is where the narrative really begins. So I wanted to take this week’s newsletter to look at some of the reasons I think it’s so effective.

Why focus on the opening? Starts are important: they’re how you get momentum, lay out what’s to come, grab somebody by the collar and shake them a little. It's the sign of a strong writer that they are able to capture you from the first sentence, from the first paragraph. I think powerful writing tends to put the most arresting, important material either at the beginning, a lure to bring the reader in, or at the end, so they walk out of the door with a specific feeling.

"The Crime" runs to just 13 pages, but in it Nagle manages to tell you the story at the center of the book and show you a little of everything that’s coming down the line. There's an intimate set-up, the people involved in the 1999 murder of George Jacobs described in intimate detail—I almost felt woozy from the heat as she traced the steps that took place that August night. There's real emotion, as the family of George Jacobs describe what his death did to them. And then there's an explanation of the stakes: by the time the chapter closes, it's obvious that not only are the lives of the people we have seen on the line, but that many lives throughout history are in the balance too.

Why does it work so well? What techniques are at work here?

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First, this opening leads us into the story—almost literally. Imagine you are a camera, an eyeball observing the activity of the people in the story. We start with the camera zoomed way out, almost as if we are looking down from space at a map of the US and its complicated borders. "The Indian Nation Turnpike is a four-lane highway cutting north to south". But the lens quickly narrows, zooms in, and she takes us down with it. The map begins to resolve; four lanes of highway turn into a more desolate-feeling two; then we’re right down on the blacktop, with the dirt and the mud down the track starting make an appearance. At each step the road becomes visible, more real. And that's because we're closing in on a specific location that is absolutely pivotal to the entire book: the place where George Jacobs was murdered.

From here, once we hit that lower perspective, things stays more or less the same level. We're in the hearts and heads of those involved in his death and its aftermath. We hover alongside Patrick Murphy, the man convicted of his killing; we're following the teenagers who were with him as they rode around drinking in the crackling darkness; we're with George's family; we're with the lawyers who came on to the case.

The zoom briefly whips back out again at the end of the chapter, suddenly pulling back to give us a sense of how this individual crime is part of something much bigger, more sprawling. By the end of the book, she tells us, the killing we've just heard about will somehow expand to include "Oklahoma, the Muscogee Nation, the Trump administration, members of Congress, the oil and gas industry, the governor, tribal leaders, and the United States Supreme Court."

That's a promise I'm interested in hearing her keep.

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The second strength in "The Crime" is how painstakingly—but efficiently—Nagle draws a scene. We follow the story, with visual details and breadcrumbs to pull us through: the McIntosh County courtroom is a "mismatch of drop ceilings and fluorescent lights hanging low over ornate wood paneling." It evokes the space, but there is economy here too, precision. These descriptions are spare, just enough to fill the sentences but not enough to crowd it. We see everything in just the right amount of detail. It keeps things flowing, and sets us up for a book that remains fast paced through to the end.

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Third, and probably most importantly, the chapter indelibly links together places and the people in them. This is fitting for the murder itself, but it's also important for a book about the meaning of land and sovereignty. Place is the center of the story at both the tangible and abstract levels, and Nagle cleverly animates the landscape to make it feel alive. I don't just mean the zoom of the camera, although that is part of it. But when you read a simple-sounding line like "the fingertips of the Ozarks stretch into eastern Oklahoma" it forges a link between the mountains and its people; when the Jacobs murder is described as a "storm" we understand that the environment and the people are all an intertwined part of this story. It doesn’t anthropomorphize the landscape, but it gives it a kind of life.

It reminded me of one of the things I found slightly jarring about Yellow Bird, Sierra Crane Murdoch's largely terrific book that was also about a terrible crime on native land (this time in Dakota.) There, the descriptions of landscape were supremely powerful and deeply haunting, but they were so extensive—pages of zoomed-in images that were almost photographically, forensically detailed—that they felt overwhelming at times. Nagle's carefully-weighed images of place are staccato in comparison, but it means they feel more connected to the people who dwell there: she appreciates nature without dissecting it or glorifying it. (That glory can be great in the right place: if you want some of it, visit Ferris Jabr's exultant descriptions in CUR003, Becoming Earth.)

One last note: even though Nagle is not really in this chapter as a character, she is in the story already as the narrator. The second line reads “I’m on the highway headed south” (rather than “if you take the highway headed south” which would be a way for an omniscient camera to describe what happens.) It’s clear that she is our guide for this story. We are here, walking the roads with her, finding the spot where George Jacobs died. The narrator fades into the background quickly, but the tone is set: this book is delivered in a chatty, almost conversational way, not a lecture from on high. It feels oral—perhaps not a surprise given how closely it's connected to the podcast This Land—and you can almost hear the voices of the local tribes telling you the story.

And her story, that voice, will get more and more important as the book goes on—making this another silent pact with the reader in a book that's all about unkept promises and broken agreements. By the time you reach the end of chapter one, you are well situated, primed for what’s to come.

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I just got off the phone from a fascinating (and storm-interrupted) call with Rebecca herself, which I'll write up and share next week. In the meantime, let me know if you enjoyed this close read of this month’s book—and if you’d like more in the future.

Onward

Bobbie