Summary

The novel opens with the narrator and her cousins hiding in a closet as adults drink and party in their house. As the novel continues, the narrator describes growing up in the shadow of constant sexual violence from boys and teachers at school and unnamed men at home. The novel begins in the springtime, when the thaw releases the smells which have been buried under the ice during the freeze.

The narrator undergoes puberty, and fights with her peers at school. She explores the tundra, taking care of the small animals she finds under shelters made from plywood blown from construction sites. In the chapter “NINE MILE LAKE,” the narrator recalls going out onto the tundra with her younger cousin, where the two of them accidentally kill baby birds by trying to feed them popcorn.

As the narrator and her peers grow older...