They leave Cherokee county, IL- a place Sequoyah seems to identify as home in his mind, referring back to it often as he moves farther and farther away. Sequoyah, a Cherokee teenager, exists between shelters, between foster families, as his mother struggles to escape drug addiction and abusive relationships. Where the Dead Sit Talking captures a search for home. Like the parts of myself that are empty and lonely found someone else to be empty and lonely with- someone who knew just how to be with me, like I am with myself. And it is the first book I've ever read that saw the emptiness within myself, acknowledged it, and walked with me in it. I felt a profound sense of emptiness reading Hobson's Where the Dead Sit Talking.
The novel is often described as 'dark,' but there are dark lives all around us."- Brandon Hobson Part of Sequoyah's voice grew out of the many voices I heard from youth who were struggling with their emotional pain, with finding their home, and with their identity in terms of both race and gender. Many of them simply felt like nobody listened. "For seven years, from 1999 to 2006, I worked in social services, doing three different jobs, all of which involved working with youth who were on the fringes of collapse, both mentally and physically.
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