Jon Hickey Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Jon Hickey is a published author from Minnesota.

He attended Cornell University, where he earned an MFA. He was also a Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University.

His first novel is titled Big Chief. Jon Hickey has also written short stories and they have been featured in such publications as the Gulf Coast, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and the Massachusetts Review, among others.

Jon belongs to the Lac du Flambeau Band of Chippewa Indians (Anishinaabe). He is married and resides in San Francisco with his wife and their two songs.

Big Chief is the debut novel from Jon Hickey. It was picked as a most anticipated book of 2025 by publications like San Francisco Chronicle, LitHub, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. Hickey was also a Publishers Weekly Writer to Watch for Spring 2025.

In this literary debut, readers will read all about corruption, power, family, and find out what it truly means to face down the ghosts of the past.

Mitch Caddo is a young man who has graduated law school and is an aspiring political fixer. He’s an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. He runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation alongside his childhood friend Tribal President Mack Beck, and also the tribe’s Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel.

On the evening of Mack’s re-election, their faint grip on power gets threatened by Gloria Hawkins, a nationally known activist and politician, and her young aid Layla Beck, who happens to be Mack’s estranged sister as well as Mitch’s former love.

In the struggle they go into to control Passage Rouge, the campaigns drop down to bare knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they are willing to go and what they are willing to put on the line and sacrifice in order to win it all.

However, when an accident gets the life of Mitch’s mentor, a power broker in the political scene of the reservation, the election immediately plunges into chaos. It also pits Mitch up against the only family that he has.

As relationships strain to breaking points and a peaceful protest could become a riot that is all-consuming, Layla and Mitch figure out that they have to collaborate with each other if they want to slow down and stop the reservation’s plunge into violence.

A unique and engaging story that is both thrilling and timely, this is a great story about looking for belonging to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance. Read it to absorb every detail!