Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

In the tradition of Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water and Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees comes a hilarious romp about how the arrival of a mysterious stranger turns an Indian reserve upside down.

Otter Lake is a sleepy little community buried somewhere deep in central Ontario. There are a few problems: Maggie Second, the chief of the community, is trying to settle a dispute over a plot of land that is to be added to the reserve. And her son, Virgil, is desperately trying to survive the boredom of his time at school. But most of all, neither Maggie nor Virgil can come to terms with the fact that Lillian Benojee, Maggie's mother, is on her deathbed. But then a mysterious and handsome white stranger named John arrives, riding a vintage 1954 Indian Chief motorcycle. Who he is, nobody knows, except for Lillian.

An Ojibway from the Curve Lake First Nations, Drew Hayden Taylor has worn many hats in his literary career. He’s been a stand-up comedian, scriptwriter, award winning playwright and a nationally published newspaper columnist. In 2007 he published his first children’s novel, The Night Wanderer: A Native Gothic Novel, and in 2009 he published Me Sexy a non-fiction work looking at the world of Native sexuality.