A review by bisexualbookshelf
Waiting for the Long Night Moon: Stories by Amanda Peters

challenging reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This book was published on February 11th, 2025 by Catapult. 

Amanda Peters’ debut short story collection, Waiting for the Long Night Moon, is a quiet meditation on grief, resilience, and the enduring bond between Indigenous people and the land. Through spare yet lyrical prose, Peters captures the weight of intergenerational trauma while insisting on the vitality of survival—a delicate balance between sorrow and defiance.

Each story in the collection offers a window into the complex realities of Indigenous life across time and place. In one, a grieving mother finds purpose as a water protector, her fight against state violence becoming an act of remembrance for her daughter. In another, an Indigenous family shelters their white French trading partners from English invaders, driven by a hard-earned empathy born from their own experiences of displacement. The titular story reflects on the lasting wounds of settler colonialism, as an Indigenous man reckons with how white settlers irrevocably altered his life. Time and again, Peters highlights the violent legacies of residential schools, the theft of language, and the slow, deliberate erasure of Indigenous identity. Yet, these stories are not defined solely by loss; the land itself emerges as a character, offering its own quiet promise of healing. Trees, rivers, and mud are not merely backdrops—they are witnesses, collaborators, and lifelines.

While Peters' storytelling is rooted in dignity and truth, I found myself longing for a stronger emotional connection to the characters. Though the writing is undeniably beautiful, the brevity of certain stories and the broad sweep across historical periods sometimes left me feeling unmoored. The collection's structure made it difficult to find a reading rhythm, and I finished the book admiring its themes more than remembering its people. This left me with a sense of respect, but not quite love.

That said, Waiting for the Long Night Moon is a valuable contribution to contemporary Indigenous literature. Peters reminds us that survival is resistance, and that memory—held in the soil, in language, in the body—is its own form of power. For readers seeking stories of resilience told with gentle lyricism and deep reverence for the earth, this collection offers a quiet but necessary voice.

📖 Recommended For: Readers drawn to lyrical, land-centered storytelling; those interested in Indigenous resistance, intergenerational trauma, and the resilience of community.

🔑 Key Themes: Land and Belonging, Grief and Resilience, Colonial Violence and Erasure, Memory as Resistance, Survival as Defiance.
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