Man Made Monsters

by Andrea Rogers, Illustrated by Jeff Edwards

Tsalagi should never have to live on human blood, but sometimes things just happen to sixteen-year-old girls.

Making her YA debut, Cherokee writer Andrea L. Rogers takes her place as one of the most striking voices of the horror renaissance that has swept the last decade.

Horror fans will get their thrills in this collection – from werewolves to vampires to zombies – all the time-worn horror baddies are there. But so are predators of a distinctly American variety – the horrors of empire, of intimate partner violence, of dispossession. And so too the monsters of Rogers’ imagination, that draw upon long-told Cherokee stories – of Deer Woman, fantastical sea creatures, and more.

Following one extended Cherokee family across the centuries, from the tribe’s homelands in Georgia in the 1830s to World War I, the Vietnam War, our own present, and well into the future, each story delivers a slice of a particular time period that will leave readers longing for more.

Alongside each story, Cherokee artist and language technologist Jeff Edwards delivers haunting illustrations that incorporate Cherokee syllabary.

But don’t just take it from us – award-winning writer of The Only Good Indians and Mongrels Stephen Graham Jones says that "Andrea Rogers writes like the house is on fire and her words are the only thing that can put it out."

Man-Made Monsters is a masterful, heartfelt, haunting collection ripe for crossover appeal – just don’t blame us if you start hearing things that go bump in the night.

Type: Young Adult Novel
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Publication: October 04, 2022
ISBN: 978-164614-179-1

PRAISE 

Walter Dean Myers Award Winner

AMERICAN INDIAN library association YOUTH LITERATURE HONOR

INTERNATIONAL LITERACY ASSOCIATION book award winner

Whippoorwhill AWARD WINNER

Reading the West Book Awards SHORTLIST

Nea READ ACROSS AMERICA RECOMMENDED TITLE

BEST OF THE YEAR

Washington Post • Booklist • Publishers Weekly • Horn Book • New York Public Library

★ “Many of these stories sound as if they were passed down as family histories. It may read like speculative fiction, but it feels like truth.”

—Horn Book (starred)

★ “Stunning collection of short stories follows a Cherokee family through two centuries, beginning with something akin to a vampire attack and ending with zombies. Rogers has a rich authorial toolbox.”

—Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred)

★ “Spine-tingling...artfully tackles themes of colonialism and its effects on entire generations, for a simultaneously frightening and enthralling read.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred)

★ “Chilling… Exquisite… A creepy and artful exploration of a haunting heritage.”

—Kirkus (starred)

★“Teen and adult readers looking for a taste of the gorgeously gruesome should snap up this dark, engrossing jewel.”

—Shelf-Awareness (starred)

★ “Startling…Will leave readers—adults as well as teens—unsettled, feeling like they have caught a glimpse into a larger world, and like there is a wider one still, just out of sight.”

—Booklist (starred)

“Dazzling, diverse, often terrifying.”

—Buffalo News

“Sometimes the only way to grapple with a monstrous past is through horror.” 

—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Incredibly grounded and intoxicating. A haunting and stunning book for you to enjoy.”

—Buzzfeed

“A brilliant and expansive journey across time, seen through a Cherokee lens. This collection is full to the brim with voice and breadth, including but not limited to magic, horror, and fantasy. The book is fun, funny, and dead-serious. It is beautifully written, and it is full of monsters.”

—Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize finalist author of There, There

“Rogers writes like the house is on fire and her words are the only thing that can put it out.” 

—Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Mongrels and The Only Good Indian

 “Fierce, fantastic, ingeniously Indigenous. Smashes all expectations. I felt my teeth getting sharper with every turn of a page.”

—Cynthia Leitich Smith, New York Times bestselling author and author-curator of Heartdrum

About Andrea L. Rogers

Andrea L. Rogers is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She graduated with an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Her stories have appeared in several literary journals. In 2020, Capstone published Mary and the Trail of Tears. Her work has also appeared in You Too? 25 Voices Share Their #METoo stories from Inkyard Press, Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids from Heartdrum, and in the anthology Allies by DK. Her picture book called, When We Gather, is forthcoming from Heartdrum.

About Jeff Edwards

Jeff Edwards, of Vian, OK, is an award-winning Cherokee graphic artist who has worked for the Cherokee Nation for over 20 years. He is a language activist and has worked on numerous projects that have projected the Cherokee language into the global spotlight. He attended Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, KS and received his Associates Degree in Liberal Arts and completed his Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah. His artwork is almost exclusively Cherokee themed and he prefers using the Cherokee Syllabary opposed to English to promote the Cherokee language and likes using old cultural concepts but expressing them with modern electronic tools.