Common Sense Media Review
By Mary Eisenhart
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Fraught, darkly funny coming-of-age tale mostly for adults.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 16+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
As MY GOOD MAN opens, it's 1992. Brian Waterson, 25, has left Rez life and its complex relationships behind, and is now a writer for a small-town newspaper. But when he learns of a vicious, mysterious beating back on the Rez, he knows he has to go back. Tim, the victim, is an older White man (brother to the long-deceased title character, serial cheater but beloved boyfriend of Brian's mom), who married a woman from the tribe and raised a family with her, and was often a mentor to Brian. Brian has a pretty good idea who did the beating, and the backstory unfolds in flashbacks going back to the '70s and '80s as he investigates and feels the conflicting pulls of Rez life, where he's his uncle's chosen successor as a healer, and the White world.
Is It Any Good?
Eric Gansworth's adult tale finds a 25-year-old Tuscarora man sorting out his identity amid conflicting demands, clashing worldviews, and complex relationships. Crude, funny, introspective and leisurely, My Good Man is packed with historic and cultural references, including the Two Row Wampum Treaty in the early 1600s that sought to define forever the relationship between Indigenous tribes and Dutch settlers; the Love Canal toxic waste disaster; and the Canadian band Rush. Set in 1992 near Niagara Falls, on and off the Tuscarora reservation, the story finds protagonist Brian trying to find a path between two worlds, alienated and typecast in his newspaper job, but ostracized and seen as weird back on the Rez. It's complicated, partly due to the family business.
"My grandfather's older brother ... might not be the only remaining medicine man, but he was the last one working in the open. Not like, hanging a shingle with a spiral handprint out front, and dreamcatchers dangling from beneath it, or other ridiculous New Age s--t. The Rez didn't speak of it, but if you needed something? You knew where to go. As soon as you say 'Medicine family' off the Rez, though, suddenly some woman drenched in patchouli and turquoise was reporting her psychic dreams and secret high Indian cheekbones. Or a middle-aged blond guy with a sad possum-tail braid was asking you to bless his drum group's digs in the old growth he bought day-trading."
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the challenges of trying to build a life in two worlds, as Brian does in My Good Man. What other stories do you know that explore this theme? Are there any that you think do so especially well?
In the 1600s, the Two Row Wampum Treaty sought to establish a world of two nations moving along in parallel, seeking their own paths and leaving each other alone. Do you think this idea could have worked? Why or why not?
Has a band ever had a life-changing effect on you, the way Rush does with Brian here? Who was it and what happened?
Book Details
- Author :
- Genre : Literary Fiction
- Topics : Friendship , History
- Character Strengths : Empathy , Gratitude , Perseverance
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Levine Querido
- Publication date : November 1, 2022
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 14 - 18
- Number of pages : 400
- Available on : Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Last updated : September 29, 2025
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