Midnight Son

More from this author, please!
Absolutely fantastic piece. 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.

Should Have Stuck with the Murder Trial
This is the account of the murder trial of Teddy Kyle Smith, an Inupiac living in his ancestral lands in Alaska. After reporting the death of his mother, he went off into the wilderness for reasons unknown. There he shot two brothers, killing one, and was eventually caught and put on trial for murder. On trial, he surprised everyone by describing an encounter with creatures out of Inupiac myth and made it clear that he feared the two brothers were also these mythical creatures. It’s a strange story, told by the author in such a sympathetic light that it was a surprise to learn that Smith actually killed a man. (No one apparently denies this.) There was also a weird attempt by the author to find the mythical creatures that sort of petered out. Ultimately, the attempt to make this about myths and not Smith made the story disappointing.

Fantastic!!!
The Author/Performer was superb at telling this tale, bringing every detail to life. The cast and production were fantastic! Felt like I was in the scene.The story about Teddy Kyle Smith was interesting, especially because of the mysterious nature of what he claimed.I look forward to future stories by James Dommek, JR!