Welcome once more to Beyond the Screams Podcast. Your place for a look a an eclectic range of genre media.
As we continue to focus on Native Americans, we’re diving into storytelling.
We’re going to discuss the true crime audiobook/podcast, Midnight Son, written and produced by Alaska Native, James Dommek Jr., with Josephine Holtzman and Isaac Kestenbaum. This is a 2019 Audible originals production, and it’s free to enjoy.
Publisher’s Summary
James Dommek, Jr., an Alaska Native writer and musician, sheds new light on a real-life mystery that pits Native American folklore against the US justice system. In the vast Alaskan Arctic, legend has it there once lived a mythic tribe—Iñukuns—that only existed in rumors and whispers. This changed forever when an actor-turned-fugitive, Teddy Kyle Smith, had an encounter that brought Iñukuns from myth to reality. Smith was an aspiring actor with a promising career until it all came quickly crashing down with a gunshot, a manhunt, bloodshed, and other frightful events.
The story of Smith’s tragic downfall has long haunted James Dommek, Jr., the great-grandson of the last of the Iñupiaq story-tellers. Midnight Son is his journey in discovering who Teddy Kyle Smith was, what he did, and what he really saw. Along the way, listeners will experience the soul of the real Alaska as narrator Dommek, Jr. brings this multilayered and sprawling tale to life.
Find the audiobook here.