![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Hi, I'm a total stranger, want to tell me the story of the most fucked-up day of your entire life?"
An Audible Original piece written and performed by James Dommek, Jr., an Alaska Native writer and musician. The story, performance, production (which includes interviews), and music are all outstanding. It's a true story.
James Dommek, Jr. is Iñupiaq, born and raised in Kiana, Alaska, population 361. After leaving to live in Anchorage, he played in an Alaska-popular metal band, the Whipsaws, and did some professional acting. He's the great grandson of one of the last great Iñupiaq storytellers, and was always fascinated by stories of Iñukuns, a possibly mythic hidden tribe.
Teddy Kyle Smith, Dommek's contemporary, is also Iñupiaq, also from Kiana, also did some professional acting. But after being possibly involved in a mysterious death, he became a fugitive, sparked a huge manhunt, and after some lost time, reappeared claiming that he'd seen Iñukuns...
Midnight Son has elements of true crime, memoir, Hollywood story, myth, social commentary, a truly hair-raising survival story, and courtroom drama, as well as a vivid portrait of life and culture in a remote Alaskan town.
It's also the story of the making of the story, in which Dommek returns to his hometown in search of the truth of the story, interviewing people he knows and people who they know. His whole process, which he documents, does a double duty of showing the social networks of small-town Alaska. Basically everyone knows everyone, and if they don't, they definitely know someone who knows someone. In many cases, they're even related.
At one point Dommek stops to say hello to a random group of guys in a parking lot, because that's something you do in Kiana, and it turns out that one of them used to know him when they were kids, which is a totally normal outcome in Kiana. And so forth. I especially enjoyed this because on my one trip to Alaska, I was startled by how everyone seemed to know everyone, and if not, they always had some sort of mutual friend type connection. And this was in Fairbanks, an actual city!
It's clear early on that some of the questions are not the sort that will ever get definitive answers, so don't go in expecting all mysteries to be solved. It's more about the journey than the destination, but it's one hell of a journey. I was riveted from beginning to end. Dommek's narrative is often dryly funny, particularly in the sections where he's trying to have an acting career.
Midnight Son isn't the gory/sadistic type of true crime and there's nothing particularly gruesome, but it does involve a mysterious death, some people getting shot, alcoholism, mental illness, and domestic violence. (No sexual violence that I recall.) But it's mostly about a place, a culture, and two men whose lives took different paths.
And Iñukuns.
Midnight Son
An Audible Original piece written and performed by James Dommek, Jr., an Alaska Native writer and musician. The story, performance, production (which includes interviews), and music are all outstanding. It's a true story.
James Dommek, Jr. is Iñupiaq, born and raised in Kiana, Alaska, population 361. After leaving to live in Anchorage, he played in an Alaska-popular metal band, the Whipsaws, and did some professional acting. He's the great grandson of one of the last great Iñupiaq storytellers, and was always fascinated by stories of Iñukuns, a possibly mythic hidden tribe.
Teddy Kyle Smith, Dommek's contemporary, is also Iñupiaq, also from Kiana, also did some professional acting. But after being possibly involved in a mysterious death, he became a fugitive, sparked a huge manhunt, and after some lost time, reappeared claiming that he'd seen Iñukuns...
Midnight Son has elements of true crime, memoir, Hollywood story, myth, social commentary, a truly hair-raising survival story, and courtroom drama, as well as a vivid portrait of life and culture in a remote Alaskan town.
It's also the story of the making of the story, in which Dommek returns to his hometown in search of the truth of the story, interviewing people he knows and people who they know. His whole process, which he documents, does a double duty of showing the social networks of small-town Alaska. Basically everyone knows everyone, and if they don't, they definitely know someone who knows someone. In many cases, they're even related.
At one point Dommek stops to say hello to a random group of guys in a parking lot, because that's something you do in Kiana, and it turns out that one of them used to know him when they were kids, which is a totally normal outcome in Kiana. And so forth. I especially enjoyed this because on my one trip to Alaska, I was startled by how everyone seemed to know everyone, and if not, they always had some sort of mutual friend type connection. And this was in Fairbanks, an actual city!
It's clear early on that some of the questions are not the sort that will ever get definitive answers, so don't go in expecting all mysteries to be solved. It's more about the journey than the destination, but it's one hell of a journey. I was riveted from beginning to end. Dommek's narrative is often dryly funny, particularly in the sections where he's trying to have an acting career.
Midnight Son isn't the gory/sadistic type of true crime and there's nothing particularly gruesome, but it does involve a mysterious death, some people getting shot, alcoholism, mental illness, and domestic violence. (No sexual violence that I recall.) But it's mostly about a place, a culture, and two men whose lives took different paths.
And Iñukuns.
Midnight Son
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject