First published 2010
Tommy Jack McMorsey makes his annual winter drive from Texas to northern Minnesota to watch the meteor showers. On this trip, he picks up a Japanese tourist obsessed with finding the ransom money from the movie Fargo buried somewhere in the Minnesota landscape. The tourist dies from exposure while in Tommy Jack's care. The death triggers a media frenzy that forces Tommy Jack to confront memories he has kept buried. He relives his time in Vietnam, recalls a passionate love affair, and faces the devastating suicide of Fred Howkowski, his closest friend. As reporters swarm and the story spreads, Tommy Jack must navigate the collision between his private grief and public scrutiny. The novel examines how images and stereotypes shape perception while revealing the complexities of contemporary Native American experience through one man's reckoning with loss.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: grief, private-vs-public, reckoning
Setting: Texas, Minnesota, Vietnam
Period: Contemporary
272 pages · Kindle Edition · Milkweed Editions
Content warnings: suicide