The Hiawatha

Life delivers a relentless series of devastating blows to three generations of a Native American family in this heartbreaking and harrowing second novel by the author of the praised Little. The story opens when Simon is released from prison, after serving a 10-year sentence for killing his brother Lester in a drunken rage. Simon comes home to South Minneapolis to see his mother, Betty, whose grief and isolation are compounded by bitter memories of her first disastrous loss, her woodsman husband's death in a tree-felling accident. Married at 16, Betty is still in her 20s when Jacob dies, left with four children to support. Simon, who witnessed his father's gruesome death, prematurely becomes the man of the house, getting construction work high above the city. The narrative crosscuts feverishly back and forth in time, each piece of painful family history emerging to clarify previously murky allusions. Treuer gingerly explores Lester's romance with Vera, a white girl, as they find a haven of intimacy in an abandoned wreck of an old train. At Lester's death Vera is pregnant, and she eventually leaves her infant son, Lincoln, with Betty. The uneasy reunion of Lincoln (who is unaware that his uncle killed his father), Betty and the guilt-ridden Simon is edged with fear and suspicion, but by the end of the novel, this turmoil mutates into a ravaging new cycle of despair and destruction. Treuer's powerful, disturbing portrait of one Ojibwe family's struggle with poverty, violence and racism is conveyed in terse prose of driving urgency. Their bleak circumstances render Betty catatonically docile and Simon prey to hair-trigger episodes of violence; neither can cope with the odds of life stacked against them. An assortment of supporting characters are memorable and lighten the protagonists' tragic load. Bluntly effective dialogue lays bare the tough heart of Treuer's brutally compelling saga. Author tour. (May)