Even As We Breathe is the first novel by Cherokee author, journalist, and academic Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, who is a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Set in western North Carolina in 1942, the narrative is a coming-of-age story about Cowney Sequoyah Jr., an orphaned 19-year-old Cherokee boy who takes a summer job at Asheville’s storied Grove Park Inn. Over the tumultuous summer, Cowney experiences an off-again, on-again relationship with a Cherokee girl also working at the inn and suffers the deaths of the two close relatives who raised him. Upon finding a piece of bare bone, Cowney becomes a suspect in the disappearance of a little girl. The events and relationships of the summer challenge Cowney’s desire to flee from his heritage and the reservation in Cherokee, North Carolina.

The novel won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award in 2021. NPR named it one of the best books of 2020, and it was a finalist for the Weatherford Award in 2020. This guide references the hardcover 2020 edition published by the University of Kentucky Press.

Content Warning: This guide contains mentions of death by suicide and child death. Readers will encounter the occasional use of expletives and racial slurs throughout the narrative.

Plot Summary

Cowney narrates the Prologue as an elderly man, speaking to a grandchild of Essie Stamper, a young Cherokee woman, who, like Cowney, worked at the Grove Park Inn during the summer of 1942. Then, the resort functioned as a detention center for Axis diplomats and their families during WWII. Cowney mentions several of the themes and events threaded through the narrative, in particular the notion that the Cherokee people belong to the mountainous region around Cherokee even when forcibly or voluntarily displaced.

Cowney recounts his childhood. His mother died soon after his birth due to complications. Several months later, his father, a World War I US Army volunteer, died in France under ambiguous circumstances. Also serving with his father was Bud, his father’s brother, who returned from the war and became Cowney’s hostile father figure. Cowney’s grandmother, Lishie, raised Cowney in her cabin, teaching him about Cherokee heritage and Christian faith.

While many young Cherokee men serve in the US military during World War II, Cowney is ineligible because he was born with his left foot turned outward. There are few working opportunities on the reservation, but Cowney lands a summer job with the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, a two-hour drive from Cherokee. Cowney drives the family’s Model T to Asheville, stopping to pick up Essie, another young reservation resident who will work as a housekeeper at the inn. Immediately infatuated, Cowney discovers that Essie is intelligent and worldly.

After their first day of work, Essie tells Cowney she has a master key to all the inn’s rooms. She says she has located a secret, unused room—447—and asks him to explore it with her. Fearful at first, Cowney accompanies Essie. The room quickly becomes a secret sanctuary in which they talk, read, and play dominoes.

While digging postholes around the inn’s perimeter, Cowney discovers a piece of bone. Intrigued, Cowney cleans, wraps, and takes the bone home. Eventually, he leaves it in room 447. Cowney also discovers a portion of a news article about a Cherokee soldier who survived the Bataan Death March only to succumb in a Japanese prison camp. Surprised that Essie does not want to read the article, he notes that she has a letter on stationery that she reads repeatedly.

Cowney asks his grandmother, Lishie, to tell him the story of his father’s death. Cowney has many unanswered questions about what really happened to his father. He wakes the next morning to a forest fire. His Uncle Bud asks Cowney to drive him to the fire line, where Bud produces a shotgun and proceeds to shoot animals fleeing the flames. Bud demands that Cowney ask the Japanese diplomats at the inn if they want to purchase bear gallbladders.

Rainy weather makes shorter workdays for Cowney and Essie, who spend their free time in room 447. Loaned a camera by his boss, Lee, Cowney takes a candid photo of Essie pretending to be a ballerina. The two discuss their dreams, both yearning to leave the reservation.

Lishie makes Cowney take her to church. He leaves the car at the church and walks home through the forest, where he finds a waterfall with a beautiful pool before it and a cave behind it. He has a spiritual encounter at the waterfall and returns there frequently.

Later, Cowney wants to see Essie in room 447. His coworker, Sol, blocks his way. Cowney pushes him to the ground in front of Lt. Peter Franks, a friendly soldier. Cowney goes to 447 and spends time with Essie, who leaves ahead of him. Cowney reads her stationery note, discovering it is a love note from Andrea, the son of an Italian diplomat. He then finds Essie and Andrea kissing in the stairwell. Peter opens the stairwell door from the outside, mistakenly assuming a romantic relationship between Cowney and Essie. Feeling betrayed, Cowney avoids Essie. He receives news that Lishie is near death.

Cowney hurries back to Cherokee, where his grandmother is unconscious in her bed. That night he sleeps beside her and dreams they have a conversation. When he wakes, Lishie is dead. Peter brings Essie to his home for the visitation, stunning Cowney. A stranger, a former Army comrade of Bud’s who was present at his father’s death, arrives. Bud demands that he leave, though first, the man gives his name and number to Cowney. To escape the awkwardness, Essie suggests they walk through the woods. Cowney takes her to the waterfall. Essie explains that she sees marriage to a non-Cherokee man as her only way to leave the reservation. Though surprised by Bud’s grief at Lishie’s funeral, Cowney does not want to have the discussion with him that Bud insists upon.

Cowney and Essie spend time together in 447, even though Cowney knows Essie is romantically involved with Andrea. She tells Cowney that she and Andrea plan a secret nighttime rendezvous on the grounds. Prohibited from interacting with the foreigners, Essie will face termination if caught. The next morning, Cowney hears sirens. Worried about Essie, he finds her in the main building, where she tells him soldiers are looking for him because they believe he may be responsible for the disappearance of a diplomat’s young daughter. While Cowney searches for additional bones near the perimeter, Peter detains him at gunpoint.

Soldiers take Cowney to the office of Col. Griggs. Hostile toward Indigenous Americans, Griggs threatens Cowney, who tries to be honest while still protecting Essie. Eventually, he tells Griggs he can find the suspect bone in 447. Griggs returns to tell him the bone is missing. Cowney requests a phone call and contacts Jon Craig, the mysterious soldier at Lishie’s visitation. Jon turns out to be a former brigadier general and current FBI agent. He frees Cowney from the inn and takes him to Cowney’s cabin, telling him to wait there until Craig can clear his name.

Two weeks of waiting ensue. Cowney develops the camera film and completes two college applications. He receives a letter from his boss asking for help since the Army is closing down its operation at the inn. A forest fire threatens Cowney’s cabin. When Bud shows up to rescue him, Cowney realizes Bud set the summer’s forest fires. The bone is confirmed not to belong to the still-missing girl. Jon drives to Cherokee to take Cowney back to the inn. Jon explains that Cowney’s father died by suicide after an argument in which Bud revealed his affair with Cowney’s mother. Bud may be Cowney’s biological father. Peter admits to Cowney at the inn that he accidentally killed the missing child while trying to untangle her from the fence. He buried her body in an Asheville cemetery and framed Cowney. Cowney takes Peter to Griggs to confess.

As his time at the inn draws to a close, Cowney receives another message: Bud is seriously ill. As he prepares to leave, he finds a note from Essie saying that she is leaving with Andrea. Back in Cherokee, Cowney finds Bud gravely sick from an untreated infection. Bud tells Cowney that he is proud of him. To Cowney’s astonishment, Essie shows up at Bud’s house. Andrea left her a brief farewell note and she feels like a fool. Two days later, Bud dies. Years later, Essie’s grandchild brings her body back to Cherokee for burial beside Cowney, according to Essie’s request.