Mean Spirit

Mean Spirit (1990) is the first novel by Chickasaw author Linda Hogan. Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1991, it was well-reviewed and established Hogan as an important Indigenous author.

The novel tells the story of what came to be known as the Osage murders, a string of killings in Oklahoma’s Osage country after oil was discovered on Osage land. The murders were ultimately discovered to have been the result of not only individual acts of anti-Indigenous violence, but also of widespread corruption, conspiracy, and cover-up: Many members of the Osage community, made wealthy by the oil rights that they owned and could lease out to various individuals, companies, and conglomerates, were murdered for those oil rights. Local individuals, business owners, law enforcement officers, and government officials were found to be complicit in the crimes.

At the time of its publication, Mean Spirit shed light on an often-overlooked portion of United States history, and many of its details are historically accurate. Mean Spirit engages thematically with the impact of anti-Indigenous racism and anti-Indigenous violence in the Osage community, the conflict between modernity and tradition in Osage country after the discovery of oil, and the interrelation of power, corruption, and greed. In 2023, the Osage murders were dramatized in a film by Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon, which is based on the eponymous nonfiction text by author David Grann. The film was nominated for several Academy Awards, including best picture. Although Grann’s text was well received, there was criticism from both Indigenous and academic communities for the way that it centered white rather than Osage experiences. In contrast, Mean Spirit is often cited as an Indigenous-authored account of the Osage murders that focuses on the Osage community rather than the white residents, ranchers, oilmen, law enforcement officers, and government officials involved. It should be noted, however, that Hogan is Chickasaw, not Osage, and her work has been criticized for being overly interested in a “pan-Indigenous” identity at the cost of detail about the Osage community and its traditions.

This guide refers to the 1990 paperback edition by Atheneum.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain references to death by suicide and anti-Indigenous racism and violence. The source text contains outdated and racist language to refer to Indigenous people, which this guide reproduces only in quotations.

Plot Summary

Mean Spirit begins in the summer of 1922 and is set in and around the fictional town of Watona, Oklahoma. Lila Blanket, an Osage woman from the Hill Community near Watona, listens to the river as it speaks, and hears in its voice a dire prophecy for her community: Modernity and development are a threat to traditional Osage culture, and something must be done to save the Osage community. She plots to send some of the Osage children down from the Hill Community into Watona, including her own daughter Grace, to be the eyes and ears of the Osage. Grace is sent to live with Belle and Moses Graycloud in Watona and grows up with little interest in Osage traditions. She socializes mostly with the white residents of Watona, especially after she purchases a land allotment that proves to be oil-rich. When Grace is murdered, in all likelihood by local oilman John Hale or his men, her daughter Nola (who witnessed her mother’s brutal murder) is sent to live with Belle and Moses. Grace’s murder has been staged to resemble a suicide, but because her death is only one of an increasing number of mysterious killings, no one in the Osage community is fooled. Belle and Moses fear for their own lives, but they are more worried for Nola, who has inherited a sizeable fortune from her mother. Grace had not been alone in her wealth: Many Osage have recently found themselves in much better economic circumstances due to the discovery of oil on their land, which was only made available to the Osage because the government thought it worthless for agriculture or grazing. White people can only gain access to this land and its oil rights through marriage, and many Osage women become sought-after partners for disingenuous white men hoping to strike it rich. These women are increasingly dying under mysterious circumstances, which has created an atmosphere of high tension in the community. The authorities try to paint Grace’s death as a suicide resulting from an unhappy love affair. That story, however, is not believable to the Osage, several of whom begin a letter-writing campaign to the federal government, asking for an investigation into the unexplained deaths of so many Osage with ties to oil money. Local law enforcement officers realize that Grace’s murder cannot be written off as a suicide, and begin to look for a suspect.

Four watchers from the Hill Community come to keep Nola safe, but Grace’s sister Sara is the next target. Sara dies in a house explosion that the authorities blame on her husband, Benoit, whom they also charge with Grace’s murder. Although everyone in the Osage community knows that Benoit did not commit either murder, he sits in jail awaiting trial in what looks like an increasingly damning case. Nola Blanket, meanwhile, has become engaged to a young white man, even though she is only 13 years old. Although it is widely agreed that this young man loves Nola, she realizes that she may never be safe with him, and as their relationship progresses, so too do her worries that he has only married her for her money and that he plans to kill her after their baby is born.

The letters from Osage country pique the interest of a Lakota detective, Stace Red Hawk, who works for the US Bureau of Investigation, but his arrival in Watona does little to stop the deaths. He slowly begins to uncover the vast network of corruption, fraud, and intimidation that underpins the murders, and also realizes that local law enforcement and government officials must be complicit in at least some of the deaths. He discovers John Hale’s involvement in the murders and he begins to build a case against him. Hale is charged, but his trial is beset with problems, and a mistrial is declared. Luckily, he is tried again for a different murder (of a white man on land within federal jurisdiction), and in that trial he is found guilty. Nola gives birth to her baby, and then shoots her husband in a fit of rage because she realizes that she will never be able to trust him. She revives her connections with the Hill Community and takes comfort in her relationship with various members of the Graycloud family. Although John Hale is in prison, the Osage community does not feel safe, and when Belle and Moses’s house explodes, they must leave and find a new home elsewhere.