David Treuer's hand paints a landscape that is as bleak a reality as we have here in America. His characters that inhabit this modern Native American tale are so real you can see them clearly in your mind's eye. In 1969, I passed through many towns in Southern Canada bordering on the Great Lakes States and was shocked to see the level of disfunction in our Native American brothers and sisters. This novel reminded me deeply of my memories of these places and how forgotten and isolated these people are and what the result is of this abandonment. For a first novel, I think we have a lot more to look forward to from this young, and, very gifted writer.

Other reviewers have touched on the way the book describes the hardscrabble Minneapolis slums; suffice it for me to say Treuer uses his obvious talent very, very well here. He knows what he is writing about, and he writes about it extremely well.

The realism of the writing does not take away from the wonderful storytelling in this novel. Treuer's choice--fratricide--is gutsy and engaging, and his characters are believable and decent.

Death pervades the book; the deaths of Simon's father, his brother, even that of a goose force the reader to see how close to death of us live all the time. Even Simon's job is brutally dangerous. Even though death is everywhere, Treuer's writing is brilliantly alive: his descriptions defy any characterization that I could try to use for them--they are just that good, from the beginning of the book to the end.

Perhaps the moving interesting and moving character for me is Betty, Simon's mother. Her love for the people around her is so hopeless and deep that my heart clenches even now to think of her with a dead husband, one son dead, and another a murderer. The quintessential survivor, she works, scrapes by, and tolerates a scumbag landlord for the sake of children she knows have very little chance in the world. But she gives them what chances she can, by hook or by crook, via the bridge of her back. No wonder she habitually rebuffs the tender affections of a decent man.

I am afraid I haven't done justice to this book; it is a terrific novel by a true talent. The other book of his that I have read, _Little_, is another emotionally evocative work that I cannot recommend highly enough.

congratulations for david treuer are in order...

his is a still rivering, so generously poured~