With the skill of a Nobel laureate (the book won the 2012 National Book Award for Fiction), Erdrich tells one history wrapped in a second which is in turn enveloped by multiple additional narratives. Early in the narration by a 13-year-old Ojibwe boy, Joe Coutts, we learn that Joe’s mother, Geraldine, has been brutally raped. She survives but retreats into deep depression and silence, saying nothing about her attacker. Joe’s father, Bazil Coutts, a respected tribal judge, does his utmost to nurse his wife back to humanity, protect his son, and hunt for the attacker. Only, without the precise location of the attack, which might have been on the North Dakota reservation or over the border, it is unclear whether the U.S. government or the tribal council has jurisdiction over the investigation. If it is the Feds, no progress is expected as commonplace violence against indigenous women goes largely unprosecuted.
Joe, on the cusp of adulthood, does his teenage best to balance his personal desire for vengeance with the interminable systematic investigations rendered by his father and the police; the fearless recklessness of youth and his childhood desire for his mother’s comfort; and the responsibility of obeying and assisting his father to care for his mom versus the impulse to ride his bike with his friends without telling his panicked parents where he is. Universally relatable characters, authentic life on the reservation, a search for justice, and growing up are delicately evoked by a master writer.