Summary
The date for the hearings in D.C. is set for the first week in March, two months away. The narration briefly dips into and switches between the lives of each character. The perspective shifts into a broader, panoramic view of the narrative, encompassing all of the characters as they go about their day-to-day business. Millie is adjusting to life on the reservation and taking down as many notes as she can. Barnes is still torn between three women whom he has feelings for. Juggie reflects on Wood Mountain, and ruefully notes how these boxing matches have physically damaged her son. Louis continues to doggedly pursue signatures for his petition, which has become a kind of sacred mission. Thomas worries about the D.C. trip. Patrice’s eyesight is starting to deteriorate inexplicably, which LaBette thinks is due to a jinx on her.
Following Zhaanat’s advice, Patrice goes to see a nurse for her eyes, driven by Wood Mountain. The nurse tells her that she would have risked going blind had she not made the appointment and gives her an ointment for her eyes. On the way back, Patrice sees the world with new eyes and notes the beauty of her surroundings with a deeper appreciation. Wood then confesses his love for her and asks her to marry him. Patrice is emotionally stricken but says nothing, and they continue walking in silence. Patrice remains ambivalent about Wood Mountain but realizes that she cannot “experiment” with him now that he has revealed his feelings for her. She remembers Zhaanat’s warning to never “play with a man’s heart” and that you never truly know a man until you tell him that you don’t love him.
Elnath and Vernon are young Mormon missionaries who are sick of each other and accept separate lodgings, despite a rule insisting on a shared room so that they can always keep tabs on each other. Elnath suspects that Vernon is sneaking off to meet a girl and is torn about whether to report him to higher-ups or not. Doing so would ruin Vernon’s standing in the community, but letting him continue his shenanigans potentially means letting him risk his soul. He hears a voice telling him to talk with Vernon and is shocked; speaking with his friend is not a mandate, but requires acknowledging his emotions and private matters, which feels like a sin.
The full backstory of Bucky’s actions toward Patrice, which have been referenced briefly beforehand, is now fully explored. He and three of his friends invited Patrice to take a ride with them one summer day. They had gone to school together since first grade, so she trusted him. Once in the car, Bucky assaulted her and tried to rape her. She resisted, and told them to go to the lake where there’s a bush she knows, promising them a good time. Once at the lake, she slipped into the water and swam away from them, appearing at her uncle’s boat.
After dinner, Juggie talks to Barnes who seems in a low mood. When she inquires, he tells her about his love troubles. She tells him to ask Valentine out for a date; he resists, saying that he is scared of her. Juggie visits Valentine and tells her Barnes wants to ask her out. Valentine is reluctant, saying that she is tired of seeing Pixie’s secondhand men. Juggie informs her that Barnes is tired of Pixie and leaves. Later, Juggie hears from Barnes that Valentine came over by herself and asked him out.
Thomas sees a boy running alongside the car on his way home from work. He knows that the running boy is a hallucination and is Roderick and tells Rose about this over breakfast. Rose decides to accompany Thomas to work later that night so that he can rest and she might watch over him.
Roderick is a ghost who was a young kid who stole bits of dough from the bakery that he worked at in order to feed himself. He got caught, however, and was fired and ran away, becoming a “runner.” He started coming to the jewel bearing plant because he got tired of all the other places on the reservation and likes to be around his old friend, Thomas.
Vernon has dreams of walking on a snowy highway. His feet seem to move on their own, without any direction from himself. He begins missing his family, his childhood home, and an old sweetheart.
Thomas, Juggie, and Millie gather together to work through the night to make copies of an important file. While working, Juggie reveals that the government had misconducted a census survey that erroneously reported to Congress that the Turtle Mountain people were prosperous. Millie reflects on the enduring discrimination against Indians and wonders why she herself so strongly identifies with her Indian heritage despite being largely assimilated into American culture and white-passing. She starts wondering about Patrice and Zhaanat, wondering if Patrice knew how extraordinary she was to be so similar to her mother. She gets distracted thinking about them and makes a mistake in her typing.
Patrice gets eyeglasses at an eye clinic. The frames are black and square, and she feels self-conscious wearing them, but the precision with which she now sees the world takes her breath away. She meets Wood Mountain, who tells her that she looks like Clark Kent’s girlfriend. She corrects him, saying that she looks like Clark Kent. On the way home, they begin kissing, which later turns into lovemaking.
Millie is concerned because she is trying to find an outfit to wear to Washington, but she is running out of geometric patterns and can only find florals, which she hates. Her friend, Grace, finally finds a checkered black and yellow shirt, perfect for her.
Thomas has finished reading The Book of Mormon, which he learns is full of racist descriptions of Native Americans as savages and, most disappointingly of all, lacks any sense of humor. He criticizes the Book of Mormon as being full of cockeyed stories, but Ruth mentions that all the stories, if you think about it, are “crazy.”
Norbert and Betty are having sex in the car when the car door opens and a stranger asks if he has a minute to tell him about the Lord’s plan for his soul.
The committee is meeting to decide which people to send to Washington D.C. Millie expresses doubt in her ability, as she doesn’t trust her voice, and suggests Patrice take her place, since she is smart and good at talking. Patrice refuses to take Millie’s place, but agrees to come with the delegation in case they need her as a backup. The committee decides that Thomas, Juggie, Millie, Moses, and Patrice will form the delegation sent to D.C. After the meeting, Thomas gives Patrice and Millie a ride back home. Millie tries to draw one of the plants that Zhaanat collects, which Patrice identifies for her.
Valentine is unimpressed by Barnes, who she thinks is limp and scrawny. He realizes that she will need a proposal of marriage before he is allowed to go any further than second base with her.
The delegation begins its journey to D.C. When they get off the train in D.C., they are enthralled and overwhelmed by the sounds of the city. They make their way to a hotel, small and shabby but clean, and settle down for a long two long days of testimonies before Congress. While Patrice is waiting in line for security at the steps of the Capitol, she sees a strikingly handsome woman shout, “Viva Puerto Rico libre!” and shoots her pistol into the air. Guards swarm and arrest the shooter, and Patrice is taken aside to be questioned by the guards. Patrice, despite the danger, is thrilled and curious about the woman and ask herself questions about what led the woman to act and what Puerto Rico was.
Analysis
The narrative, already toggling between many different characters, becomes more explicit and formally condenses the characters’ lives over the two months preceding the Washington D.C. testimony. Erdrich speeds up the narration and titles each section with the names of the character who serves as the subject. We receive the lives of the characters—their thoughts, worries, loves—cut up and pasted together. The effect is faintly defamiliarizing and takes the reader outside of the inner lives of each character and into the broad and swift passage of time in which they are all caught up.
There is drama between the two Mormon missionaries, as Elnath has reason to suspect that Vernon is having an illegal love affair with a woman due to his numerous unexplained absences. He contemplates reporting Vernon to the higher-ups, but feels torn about the purity of his motivations and whether he might be just trying to get rid of Vernon. His powerful resistance to the idea of talking to Vernon is rooted in an internalized prohibition against speaking to another about his private emotions, which he compares to a “disease” and describes as a sin. To talk privately about his emotions is tantamount to keeping a secret from God, who is supposed to be his only true confidante. His Mormon religion requires constant surveillance of one’s attitudes and actions, but also of other people’s, which is why they are mandated to always share rooms so that they can surveil each other. The constant vigilance and surveillance of emotion appears to be emotionally unsustainable.
The full backstory of Bucky’s attempted rape of Patrice is revealed, explaining in part her caution toward men and romance. Once again, the theme of violence against women at the hands of men returns, connecting Vera and Patrice together. In Patrice’s case, the violence is intracommunal, perpetuated by a longtime classmate. In Vera’s case, the violence occurs at the hands of strangers in a new city. Erdrich carefully elucidates the ways danger is ever present for Native women both within and outside of their communities, as well as the ways that they protect each other and survive.
We learn a little in part why Roderick is a ghost, which is that he died unassimilated and couldn’t go to “white hell” or “white heaven.” He also died outside of the reservation, too far away to “meet the deadline for Chippewa heaven” (372). He died a liminal death, not belonging to either the Chippewa or the white American world, so he haunts the living. He obsesses with the other—more glorious—ways that he might have died rather than through illness. His ghostliness is an externalization of an inner alienation, isolated from his Chippewa community but not assimilated enough into white America.
The D.C. trip goes off mostly without notable highlights, except for an act of civil disobedience that Patrice witnesses in front of the Capitol. She sees a Puerto Rican shoot a gun into the air while exclaiming “Viva Puerto Rico libre!” and becomes extremely curious about her and her cause. She later researches the woman and Puerto Rico and learns about their colonial relationship with the United States. By staging this encounter, Erdrich directly links the indigenous genocide and colonization of mainland America with the colonial status of Puerto Rico, an island of people who cannot elect their own political representatives and who are affected by the White House but cannot vote for the president. Her critique of colonialism, while grounded in the Turtle Rock reservation, is not solely territorial, but touches upon wherever the United States has taken paternalistic control over a group of people and undermined their sovereignty.
