The Last Human Bear - by Greg Sarris (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"Lush and gripping." --Rebecca Solnit

"It's revelatory on every page." --Dave Eggers

"The grand return of a master storyteller." --Peter Maravelis, City Lights Booksellers

An epic story of curses, love, hard-won independence, and healing--and the first novel in 28 years by a widely acclaimed Native writer.

Mary Hatcher lives with a curse--or is it a power that could make her life whole? A Native Pomo woman who comes of age in 1930s California, Mary keeps trying to make sense of her enigmatic family. Strange rumors spread about her. Her stepmother may have taught her how to become a Human Bear, a shapeshifter who can menace and poison enemies. Two men may love her--or love who they think she is. A mystery even to herself, Mary learns to pass between Native and white societies, tenaciously carving her own path as an independent woman. But as she explores love and desire, family inherited and chosen, and the secrets of the natural world, one question gnaws at her: Is she fated to do harm?

Wry and richly lyrical, The Last Human Bear follows Mary from the Great Depression to the twenty-first century, when she commits a haunting final act. Inspired by the Native women elders who shaped Greg Sarris in his youth, it is the triumphant and revelatory return of an eminent novelist. With illustrations by Obi Kaufmann.

Review Quotes

June 2026 Indie Next Pick

Praise for The Last Human Bear:

"Fans of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace and Jean Craighead George's Julie of the Wolves will enjoy this well-written novel about an unstoppable heroine who defies multiple cultures to build a life of her own." --Library Journal

"Cussed, choleric and often consumed by remorse, Mary is fascinating without being sympathetic. Mr. Sarris has fashioned for her a rough-hewn, splintery narrative voice, her English 'a mess of high and low and everything in between.' Digressive and uncensored, she reminds me of the colorful Lucy Marsden in Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. Mary's anecdotes intelligently probe questions of fate: She rejects her culture because she hates her reputation as a deadly tolik, but her desire for revenge against those who wronged her and her mother makes the curse self-fulfilling. The Last Human Bear is about the inescapability of inheritance, and it is only in delivering her sprawling confessions that Mary begins to accept the powers passed down to her." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

"In Greg Sarris's sweeping new novel, uncertainty is the primary theme of our protagonist's life. This anxiety, and her often bemusing behavior, give Mary's character a unique richness, but they also highlight the loneliness that lives alongside a slow genocide, as ranchers and settlers displace and kill the remaining Indigenous Californians that Mary grew up around. Shelve next to: Sherman Alexie, Deborah A. Miranda. Unscientifically calculated reading time: One and a half sleepless nights." --Apoorva Tadepalli, The Believer

"The novel follows Mary Hatcher, a Pomo Indian in Sonoma County, from Prohibition through the 21st century. It's told in the first person through Hatcher's compelling voice as she narrates the horror and heartbreak of her lifetime over the course of a century, echoing William Faulkner's literary style, which influenced Sarris." --Los Angeles Times

"In The Last Human Bear, Sarris sets a lyrical story of a tenacious Indigenous woman against the backdrop of a rapidly changing America to great effect." --Electric Literature

"A sprawling bildungsroman, complex and intricate. Its fierce protagonist, a Pomo girl called Mary Hatcher, begins her life's narrative in a strikingly Dickensian voice. [...] Mary's mother's death, by apparent suicide, is the linchpin of this saga, which commences in 1930s Santa Rosa--then a small town surrounded by pristine countryside, farms, and orchards. [...] Alongside Mary, a vivid ensemble of men and women live (and die) during the inevitable: accelerating modernization; raw land developed; old cultures lost. Tried and thwarted in sometimes shocking ways--vilified, shunned, at one point accused of murder and fearing for her life--Mary survives by anticipating change." --Joan Frank, Alta Journal

"In I, Sarris brings an intimate knowledge of his tribe's territory with stories by--and about--elder women who inspired his work of historical fiction." --Indian Country Today

"Part murder mystery and also part family chronicle [...] The Last Human Bear traces the links between classes, races, tribes and ethnicities, along with the ineluctable web of life that encompasses people and animals, as well as animals who are people and people who are animals." --CounterPunch

"A classic trickster fable, the story unfolds as a confession in which the reader is both aware of the ploy and a willing participant. Once you have heard the story, you, too, are schooled in the dark arts." --Santa Rosa Press Democrat

"In The Last Human Bear, Greg Sarris weaves the story of one desperately independent--and achingly lonely--woman into the history of Santa Rosa, Calif., and the displacement of its first residents." --Stanford Magazine

"This powerful novel by Greg Sarris is about one character, one place, one time, one curse, but it's also about all the stormy impulses in any human heart that undermine love, joy, connection, all the ways that loss and privation lead to loss and privation. But it is itself lush and gripping as it follows one Native Californian from early girlhood to late old age, walking her own path through a changing world." --Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me

"The Last Human Bear is a very complex, very moving meditation on personal origins and family lore, illuminating a part of California's history that's rarely seen in literature. It's revelatory on every page." --Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

"A page into The Last Human Bear, Greg Sarris writes, 'The heart has no limits.' Thus begins an exploration of the heart--its longings, aches, grievances, regrets, hates, and loves. Sarris has given us a love letter to the western landscape and the people who call it home." --Lisa See, author of Daughters of the Sun and Moon and Lady Tan's Circle of Women

"The Last Human Bear is a love story, a tale of place and of a bold-voiced woman whose life has been misunderstood, and a vaulting American yarn that carries you along like a leaf on the wind." --John Freeman, author of California Rewritten

"Sarris has a master touch that is both delicate and vivid. The Last Human Bear is filled with this grace. This novel is so much more rich and complicated than a few words can express and it is so very worth it to discover that in the reading." --Sheryl Cotleur, Copperfield's Books

"The grand return of a master storyteller, The Last Human Bear is a riveting journey into the intricacies of passion and how the legacies of the past can haunt us. Greg Sarris courageously explores the ethical struggles that emerge from genuine self exploration and offers a timely meditation on the possibilities for healing and reconciling with one's nature." --Peter Maravelis, City Lights Booksellers

"A very compelling tale of being caught between worlds. Dealing with biases without the support of her tribe, Mary has only her irascible stepmother, a Human Bear. Mary scoffs at this belief but learns a great deal from her elder. Mary can pass as Mexican or white and has many choices to make in life: in her 90s she looks back and sees herself as stubborn and selfish, but with strong legs. She begins to suspect that she, too, is a Bear." --Hannah Jennings, Beagle and Wolf Books & Bindery

"The novel traces the very long life of one Pomo woman, from the 1930s to the present, and the breathtaking changes of that span: to nature, the built environment, social ties, and traditional ways. It asks and answers critical questions and implicates the reader in that conversation, telling a remarkable twisting story along the way. This novel is literally unforgettable: it will embed itself in your mind and stay there." --Christie Olson Day, Gallery Bookshop

"Mary Hatcher cannot die, that is, until she passes on what her stepmother passed on to her: how to be a tolik (a Human Bear, shape-shifter, 'poisoner', medicine carrier). Rich in story-telling texture, Mary's story takes you from her childhood to old age. Extending the story over an entire lifetime leaves time for discoveries, love, hate, bad decisions, good decisions and encounters with people that leave their mark even to the end. The writing is excellent. Highly recommend." --Kathleen Johnson, Roundabout Books

About the Author

Greg Sarris is an enrolled member of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and is currently serving his seventeenth consecutive elected term as chairman of the tribe. He is the author of several books, including the novel Grand Avenue, which he adapted for an HBO miniseries and co-executive produced with Robert Redford; the novel Watermelon Nights; Weaving the Dream, a biography of Mabel McKay; Becoming Story, a memoir; and the story collections How a Mountain Was Made and The Forgetters. Formerly a full professor of English at UCLA, Sarris serves on the University of California Board of Regents and the Sundance Institute Board, and he holds the Distinguished Emeritus Graton Endowed Chair in Native American Studies at Sonoma State University. He lives in Sonoma County, California.