Night of the Living Rez

David/Dee is the first-person narrator of all of the stories in Night of the Living Rez. He is a dynamic protagonist, and at times he becomes unreliable in his narration of events. David moves to the Penobscot Reservation with his mother following his parents’ divorce, and he grows up there with his mother, her new partner Frick, his sister Paige, and his grandmother. David is a sensitive and perceptive child whose masculinity and Indigeneity are often questioned and belittled by the men in his life. From the beginning of his time on the reservation, David must grapple with the question of what it means to be “Native enough,” and what type of man he will eventually become.

One of the unresolved questions of the collection is why (and when) David starts calling himself Dee. Dee’s recounting of a story that happened to David in “Half-Life” confirms that these characters are the same person, but Dee never reflects on why he felt it was necessary to leave the piece of his identity that was “David” behind. Dee is different from David in many ways: He’s more prone to violence (as detailed in Violence as an Expression of Masculinity), he’s more cynical about his relationship to Penobscot culture, and his addiction to cigarettes has grown into dependency on a variety of substances.