Fighters

Chee Brossy is the author of the poetry collection, The Strings Are Lightning And Hold You In (Tupelo Press, 2022). His poetry and fiction have appeared in the Southern Indiana Review, Malahat Review, Narrative Magazine, Colorado Review, PRISM International, and elsewhere. He holds a degree in English from Dartmouth College. He is a member of the Navajo Nation.

"Fighters is a complex coming-of-age story set on the Navajo Reservation featuring two sets of brothers whose lives diverge and then converge again years later. Wyland, the young man at the center of these three connected stories, is trying to navigate the world of video games, competitive sports, girls, and a dangerous shadow world that exists just off-stage. In three books of poetry and now this novella, Chee Brossy has assembled a rich body of work that portrays the complexities, difficulties, and beauties of contemporary Navajo lives--on and off the reservation. The work asks, among other questions, How does one go out into a fragmented, sometimes brutal, but also rich world of diverse cultures and retain one's ties to friends and family, language and culture and ceremony? How does one walk in beauty in a world that often seems anything but beautiful?" -Jon Davis, author of Above the Bejeweled City and Now & Fearless--Jon Davis "Fighters is a story about two sets of brothers on the Navajo Rez. All four are players of games-ordinary, everyday games like basketball, wrestling, and arm wrestling. When fighting, of course, one must look good and test limits. But when the brothers meet to play video games, a darker subtext is introduced by the mother of two of the boys. 'You will be chased in your dreams, ' she warns. The boys walk past photos of the celebrated enlisted military fighters in the family to the bedroom where the game console is, where the game-fighters fight to the death. The brothers are curious to know more about why the older, defiant brother Jake spent the night in juvie. Moody, covered in nicks and cuts, Jake plays with a controller in one hand and a handgun in the other. The boys in this game-turned-dangerous keep testing limits while they are being delivered to an unexpected conclusion. It's all fun and games until it's not, and the reader is left spellbound by Chee Brossy's storytelling abilities." -Charlene Teters, a citizen of the Spokane Nation, is an artist, educator, and lecturer. Her paintings and art installations have been featured in over 21 major exhibitions, commissions, and collections.--Charlene Teters