“A quest, a pursuit, a spiritual mystery, a road book. A penetrating study of the hidden corners of the human heart.”
These are some of the descriptions that advance readers have used when responding to Lone Dog Road. And I like to think that they are all accurate.
Lone Dog Road was a project that came into focus only when the pandemic began. I had been wanting to write a grand, sprawling novel that brought together all the things I love: the mystery and majesty of the Dakotas, the spiritual forces in the land, the hearts and hopes of people struggling to live honorable lives in difficult circumstances, the lessons of Native America, and the intimations of otherness that live just outside the edges of our everyday consciousness.
But the time hadn’t been right.
Suddenly it was.
We were a fractured nation—fractured and frozen in place. Politics had made us adversaries; a plague had made us insular. We were on a common journey, but we were all traveling alone.
In Lone Dog Road I could speak to this aloneness and to its healing, and do so through the people and places I had come to believe in and love.
It was a risky course. We were in a time that demanded, even celebrated, our differences, and the idea that a writer — especially a white male writer — could enter into the hearts and minds of people of different races or cultures or personal histories was to touch the third rail of American identity politics.
But I didn’t care. Empathy and using the creative imagination to enter into the lives of others is what I do best. And I was in no mood to justify or issue apologies. It was time to tell the story.
So off I went. Down Lone Dog Road.
Two young Lakota boys on the run, one 11 and one six; their great grandfather who adhered to the traditional ways; their angry and wounded mother; a white wanderer grieving over his dead dog and trying to find his place in the world; a cruel mixed blood who worked for the government grabbing children for the boarding schools; a Lakota woman and her white ex-seminarian husband who shared a dark and tragic secret; a wheelchair-bound Dakotah woman tasked with caretaking the pipestone artifacts bequeathed to her by her grandfather; a Black itinerant gospel singer; and an old dog who lived for porkchops and only wanted to make people happy. And at the heart, two unseen forces — a broken Channupa, or sacred pipe, and the haunting memory of a dead child.
These were my fellow travelers, my companions. And I grew to know and love them all.
It has been a struggle to get them to you. I had touched the third rail and publishers ran scared. But now, at long last, the drama of getting the book published is over, and the journey of the people and the land of Lone Dog Road can begin. I hope you will enjoy my fellow travelers as much as I did, and that you will enjoy reading this heartfelt child of the pandemic as much as I enjoyed writing it.
I will write new updates at least once a week. Sign up if you haven’t, at kentnerburn.com. That way you can meet the characters, hear the story, be part of the journey. I look forward to having you as a fellow traveler as we make our way together down Lone Dog Road.
I have read many of your books and am anxious to read Lone Dog Road. If you ever get to Washington
State would love to have you as a guest speaker for HOA free educational program.
I asked for this for Christmas a couple of years ago it seems, when we saw a clip on the paper about it. I can’t wait to read it! I love all of Kent’s books! So, spring of 2025 for this one?
Musings: I look forward to Kent’s unique voice, understanding, and knowledge. Thanks for starting a series of updates. New lessons, new understandings of otherness, new and expanded consciousness. And I expect in all this there will be a touchstone and groundedness of humanity.
Thank you for keeping me posted about your journey on a special road. Your desire has shown much and is well deserved to have your interest in. Your learning about the Dakota people, all while having deep respect and empathy states a lot, to where words are hard to express my appreciation. Ahé hee’
Looking forward to reading.
suestark1989@gmail.com Thank you for a peek at what’s to come. Love all the books sequeled to Wolf nor Dog. Always admired the Lakotas. And you were able to make me appreciate them even more. Imprint them on my heart. Thank you ♥️
As with all your previous works, I look forward to holding this book and to turn the pages as the story reveals itself.
Lone Dog Road: “Two young Lakota boys on the run …”
Reminds me of the story of two First Nations boys from along the Rainy River, who, my Canadian-American co-worker told me, were sent to live with the nuns in southwestern Ontario in about the 1940s, the exact location not revealed. Among many other children, they worked in the garden and fields. He said they would be fed broth when the nuns and others would eat vegetables; the best of the bounty. Working this way for some time, one night they made a run for it and never looked back. Having been taught to forage and live off the land by their elders, they avoided recapture as they made their way toward home. Reaching a nearby vicinity, as I remember those years ago, the people hid them and fed them as they dared, until the boys were old enough to join the Canadian armed services.
The Canadian who told me this story was critical of his wife’s First Nations relatives, young and old; whom he often jokingly imitated in repetition of their speech patterns and behaviors. He called them lazy and criticized them for thinking they deserved welfare. He did this so often that it wore on me until one day I finally said, “Do you know you are bad-mouthing your own children? Your wife, of all people? And very likely, because your father had been sent to ‘live with the nuns,’ that you are a First Nations citizen yourself? That what your father had beat into him in boarding school, was to forever hate his own people, and that’s what he’s unknowingly repeated to you and your siblings, as intergenerational trauma.
The Canadian replied, “No, that’s just what they did in those days …”
“Not to everyone, Joe. Not to everyone.”
I think Lone Dog Road will delve into this historical tragedy in an unique way. I am looking forward to purchasing it, Kent.
Making time to read the first book in the collection. The way I read is I become the story. With this topic I am already fired up at the way history has been written up to now. As I read I pray others like me will see just some of what I view as the wrong that has happened. I look forward to finishing the set by Spring of 2025 so I am ready to continue the tale. Thank you for sticking with the desire to tell a tale that needs to be told.
Dear Kent,
I really love your books and have so.much respect for you and how you are teaching us, as Americans, things we never knew. I have recommended your books to my book club in California.
I am so looking forward to your new book.
Thank you,
Audrey
Patiently waiting for your new book to be published,so I, like so many others, can purchase & read it. I know the contents will be well worth the wait! I’ve enjoyed all your book and am just very excited to add this one to my collection. Thank you Kent, I’ve learned so much from your writing.
What you’ve shared Kent, is the beauty and power of literature that takes us where we need to go.
We are not all there is, like the spirit that moves you to give expression to what you feel and experience.
Lone Dog Road, like all your books, is an invitation to those places in our heart that are collectively ignored.
Any wonder so many publishers you contacted declined to pry open doors yet to be opened or long since shut?
Like prophets ignored or crucified, and dreams evaporated, so too, are works of heart lost on the heartless.
Buddha saw long ago that’s how many have to go and may have to keep coming back until their hearts are opened.
Buddha wept as Jesus later did, even praying for those who crucified Him. Lao Tzu was sad at heart at the ways of Man.
Native American wisdom also teaches that our hearts are the center of our being, that can help us avoid the endless strife.
But few can go there. I’m grateful to Great Spirit you have Kent, helping us to do the same as we make our way thru this life.
Walking in another’s moccasins as you help us to do most wonderfully, opens our hearts even more, living our lives with heart.
Woyawaste’ Kent