Margie
Distilled down to its absolute barest of essentials, the novel can be termed the story of how Margie Robineau became “unarguably the hands-down best frybread maker on the entire Mozhay Point Indian Reservation.” It is worth noting that though Margie does not come to earn this unofficial title until later in life, even by the tender age of twenty-two it was a routinely agreed-upon but unspoken fact. Margie’s long story that involves quite a bit more than frying bread is one that will have to wait until the reining queen of frybread, Annie Buck, passes on to meet her ancestors.
Dale Anne
Dale Anne is the eldest of the Dionne sisters—who are kind of a big deal and comical besides—as well as tribal education director of the Mozhay Reservation. She becomes something of an iconic symbol of the ways in which natives who leave one of the many tribal reservations almost always seem to be lured back to it as if by a siren’s call. Dale Anne returns to Mozhay after having relocated to Chicago as a high-performing student with ambitious dreams only to wind up relegated to unchallenging service as a phone operator. It is the not just scent of sweetgrass on the LaForce allotment that sings the siren song.
Theresa
Theresa is the third member of the triumvirate of Ojibwe women in Minnesota who make up the focus of the narrative. Together with Margie and Dale Anne, Theresa serves to formulate a hardy trio of strong female characters whose evolution set against the backdrop of the 1970’s and 1980’s forms the centerpiece of the novel. When Theresa heads to Duluth in search of education and employment she meets a boy who will become instrumental in the lives all three women.
Michael Washington
Michael Washington becomes the first member of his family—on either side—to attend college. That college is in Duluth, but that college experience is just one of many in Michael’s vivid and full life. That life includes, among other things, the apparent abandonment of a daughter, a brief escape into self-exile in Minneapolis, a ricing partnership and more with Margie, and the greatest gossip fodder of all: allowing himself to be stolen away from Margie by Theresa.
