Motorcycles & Sweetgrass

Drew Hayden Taylor excels at tension, building it from the moment a stranger named John arrives on a vintage Indian Chief bike. He rolls into the Anishnawbe community of Otter Lake to keep a longheld promise to a now-dying elder. Taylor playfully creates his anti-hero, who’s young, old, wise and wild all at once. He lusts after the elder’s daughter, pissing off her son Virgil and everyone else, including the local raccoon population. Their grudge goes way back, but their furry fury is never fully felt. The reckoning comes instead at the hands of Virgil’s uncle Wayne, a self-professed Native martial artist: an expected route to resolution.