We Survived the Night

A stunning work of narrative non-fiction from one of the most powerful young Native American writers at work today—We Survived the Night combines investigative journalism, folklore, and a deeply personal father-son journey in a searing portrait of a community fighting for self-determination in a fractured nation.

Born to a Secwepemc father and Jewish-Irish mother, Julian Brave Noisecat’s childhood was full of contradictions. Despite living in the urban Native community of Oakland, California, he was raised primarily by his white mother. He was a competitive powwow dancer, but asked his father to cut his hair short, fearing that his white classmates would call him a girl if he kept it long. When his father, tormented by an abusive and impoverished rez upbringing, eventually left the family, Noisecat was left to make sense of his Indigenous heritage and identity on his own.

Now, decades later, Noisecat has set across the country to correct the erasure, invisibility, and misconceptions surrounding this nation’s First Peoples, as he develops his voice as a storyteller and artist in his own right. On his way he meets the activists campaigning to change the Washington football team’s name, members of the Quinault Nation forced to relocate due to rising sea levels, and Navajo families still reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. He follows the movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline and retraces his family’s own canoe journey honoring the 50th anniversary of the Alcatraz Occupation, an experience that brought Noisecat and his father closer as Native men than they had been before.

Drawing from five years of on-the-ground reporting, We Survived the Night paints a profound and unforgettable portrait of contemporary Indigenous life, alongside an intimate and deeply powerful reckoning with a relationship between a father and a son. Soulful, formally daring, indelible work from an important new voice.