Motorcycles and Sweetgrass — Drew Hayden Taylor

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, an Anishnaawbe Reserve 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 its uses. And her son, Virgil, is desperately trying to survive the boredom of his time at school - that is, when he bothers to show up for his classes. 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 - who for reasons unknown has many last names - arrives, riding a vintage 1954 Indian Chief motorcycle. Who he is, nobody knows, except for Lillian. When she summons him during her final farewells, she also charges him with a mission to help the people she loves the most, whom she is leaving behind. Maggie finds herself increasingly enamoured with the handsome young White man. Virgil, however, is less than enchanted, and finds the stranger far too mysterious and scary to allow him to hook up with his mother. With the help of his uncle, Wayne (who has sequestered himself on an isolated island for four years while developing an aboriginal martial art), they will try and drive the stranger from the reserve.