The Last Human Bear: a novel by Greg Sarris

Widely acclaimed storyteller Greg Sarris (author of Grand Avenue and Watermelon Nights) discusses his first novel in twenty-eight years, The Last Human Bear, with Obi Kaufmann.

Set against the backdrop of 20th-century California Indian country, Sarris’ novel transports readers to migrant field worker camps, Depression-era rancherias, and cinematic Sonoma landscapes to follow the life journey of Mary Hatcher, a Native Pomo woman of unbow-able spirit. Forged in tragedy and endowed with peculiar secrets from her Coast Miwok stepmother, Mary comes of age an outcast among her own people, rumored to be a tolik—a poisoner, a shapeshifter, and the last of her kind.

A mystery even to herself, Mary passes between Native and white societies, carving a path against the twin headwinds of prejudice and poverty toward hard-fought independence. A life of defiant trysts and turns, two loves, and one curse culminate in a haunting final act for which Mary must unburden herself in order to die: “That’s why I’m talking. I can’t go on until I pass on this business.”

With The Last Human Bear Sarris delivers an unforgettable protagonist surrounded by a lucidly realized cast of characters. Offering an engrossing rejoinder to the paucity of fiction centering California’s first peoples, Mary’s story—textured with code-switching, old world lore, and a quiet enchantment with the more-than-human world—illuminates her times and introduces a voice to American fiction that has been conspicuously absent.

Greg Sarris is an author, university professor, and tribal leader currently serving his seventeenth term as Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. His publications include Keeping Slug Woman Alive, Grand Avenue, Watermelon Nights, How a Mountain Was Made, Becoming Story, and The Forgetters. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Sundance Institute, former board chair of the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, and a member of the Board of Regents for the University of California. Greg lives and works in Sonoma County, California.

Obi Kaufmann is the author of The California Field Atlas, The State of Water, The Forests of California, The Coasts of California, The Deserts of California, and State of Fire. His forthcoming book, California Inside Out, debuts September 2026.

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