You Who Enter Here

SUNY Series: Native Traces

by Erika T. Wurth

Erika T. Wurth is Professor of Creative Writing at Western Illinois University. She is the author of one previous novel, Crazy Horse's Girlfriend ; two collections of poetry, Indian Trains and A Thousand Horses Out to Sea ; and a collection of short stories, Buckskin Cocaine . She is Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee and was raised outside of Denver.

Genres: Fiction, Dark, Westerns

248 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2019

About the author

Erika T. Wurth’s novel WHITE HORSE is a New York Times editors pick, a Good Morning America buzz pick, and an Indie Next, Target book of the Month, and Book of the Month Pick. She is both a Kenyon and Sewanee fellow, and Kenyon faculty. She’s published in Buzzfeed, McSweeny’s, and The Writer’s Chronicle, and is a narrative artist for the Meow Wolf Denver installation. She’s a professor of creative writing at Western Illinois University. She’s represented by Rebecca Friedman. She’s an urban Native of Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee descent and lives in Denver with her partner, niece, step-kids and two incredibly fluffy dogs. Her novel THE HAUNTING OF ROOM 904 will be out with Flatiron books March 2025.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having spent my high school years in Florida, back in the mid-90's, I was surrounded by teens who were desparately trying to find themselves. It was an incredibly mixed demographic, a melting pot of african-amercians, hispanics, and white kids all cultivating their identities.

Cops were a regular fixture, in school and paroling our developments. The Latin Kings were a growing presence as were the Bloods and Crips. There were countless drug raids, knife fights in the bathrooms and hallways, friends and students being sent to juvy for dealing drugs in the mall cafeteria. Kids who were wrongly identified (I was regularly pegged as spanish because of my brown eyes and dark hair, even though I am italian) were ostracized and regularly threatened or shown kindness based on everyone's assumption of your nationality or affiliation. Due to all this, our school started banning all gang-affliated gear and even attempted to disallow certain color-pairings altogether because of the turmoil and fighting it caused on campus.

These are things I hadn't thought about in almost 25 years, but Erika Wurth's You Who Enter Here brought much of it back as I began reading about Matthew and Chris and their visions of rising up through the ranks of an Alburquerque Native American gang, the 505s. Matthew felt so familiar, like so many of the kids I went to school with. Lost, from a broken home, latching on to anyone who showered him with attention, escaping one bad situtation only to end up in one that, though it felt better, was even worse. The peer pressure, the money, the drugs, and the sense of family, something he hadn't felt in a long while, intriguing him, pulling him in.

Erika writes raw, flawed characters who must learn to navigate harsh realities. She imbues them with desires that are often reflected within ourselves - the desire to be accepted, to be loved, to be admired, and to live a life that's worthy of living. But more than that, through her writing, and the recent writing of others (Stephen Graham Jones, Brandon Hobson, etc.), Wurth is ushering in a shift in America's perception of what it means to be Native American.

(one of my Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2019: https://bit.ly/2SHKV5L)

[Johanna DeBiase · Rating 5 out of 5]

“You Who Enter Here” is about a young Apache/Navajo man with a drinking problem, Matthew, who joins a Native American gang, the 505s, in Albuquerque in the early 2000s. Matthew grows up with an alcoholic mother. His mother forsakes her own culture in exchange for the crumbs of false love tossed at her by men both abusive to her and to her children. Matthew’s only tie to the “rez” is his now-deceased grandmother. The memories he has of her are, though few, the happiest of his life. When Matthew escapes his mother’s home, he becomes a bum, living on the streets of Albuquerque until Chris finds him. Chris is in a gang, the 505s, a gang of urban Indians who take Matthew in and treat him like family, the only family Matthew has. Chris helps him get sober and for a while, Matthew is happy being Chris’s ally. Chris is power hungry and wants to grow their little gang into something bigger to rival the Mexican gangs.

Matthew is quiet. He loves to read. He understands how to keep the peace. And yet, in a single moment, he will shoot and kill someone without thought. Matthew’s hatred comes up from deep within him and takes over, but he feels detached from it. He doesn’t see himself as a killer, but a victim of circumstance. Matthew falls in love with Chris’s long-time girlfriend, Maria. For the first time in his life, he believes he has found love, something he never believed possible. And for a while, he thinks that she loves him back. But Maria is a junkie and in this life of drugs and violence, relationships are complex, and it is difficult to know who to trust. Everyone is out for themselves.

Between rival gangs, romantic love triangles and addiction, “You Who Enter Here” is wrought with page-turning tension. Wurth writes with incredible candor and authority on her subject matter. She gets to the heart of her characters in such a way that one feels as if they are walking beside them, living in their pain. Wurth has written a beautiful tragedy. A sliver of life that no one wants to look at but can’t turn away from. The tragedy of the soul, of people born into poverty and pain with no sense of self-worth who find sanction in gangs because that’s all they have.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enlightening and deeply disturbing. A novel about life when there is very little hope or love in it. Young men and the women who are drawn to them try to find a place for themselves in life when birth families and societal help don't exist. Gangs fill a void but it is filled with alcohol, drugs, guns, and no morals. These characters are so realistically written that we feel their pain, helplessness, and need. This is an emotionally difficult read but well worth the effort.

[Jashanpreet · Rating 4 out of 5]

The books I like best are the ones that open up new avenues of thinking. Not a lot of contemporary culture is based on kindness no matter how far we think we’ve come. Are we really as inclusive as we claim to be on twitter? This one sensitizes the reader to reflect upon the troubles of those who are often exposed to the harshest and meanest spectrum of inhumane existence. The addicts, the homeless…how do they put up with each day and more importantly…each cold night? The stories that unfold by each dumpster, the pregnant junkie who no no one cares for, the guy asking for alms by the signal, the high homeless we ignore and walk away from,…all the helplessness and the pain of these people. This is what the novel forces the reader to reflect upon.

The writing is not the beat that is out there. I mean if you took out the word “said” out of this novel…significant weight and pages would be gone probably. The correct use of proper and common nouns is often amiss. The writer being a creative writer teacher irks me even more when it comes to the writing style. Also, I would’ve liked the novel to explore a bit more of the indigenous history of the characters…but all in all I didn’t regret investing time in this one.

Good read!!

[Anne Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow this story was so sad. I had to take a lot of breaks because the hits just kept on coming. I like the way Wurth makes all of the characters flawed, complex, and yet a bit likable. This story really hit home about the complicated feelings teenagers have and wanting to fit in while also highlighting how it feels to be different. I will say that some of the timeline got a bit confusing and it took me a little while to figure out what was happening. A good read but it made me feel so sad and I need to go read something light and fluffy now.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stellar book. It’s brutal and right up in your face, and heartrendingly beautiful at times too. Some seriously good stuff. Definitely memorable.