Home and Belonging

All of the novel’s primary characters are connected by their common search for home and belonging. Because Jude Star, Opal Viola Bear Shield, Charles Star, Victoria Bear Shield, Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, Jacquie Red Feather, and the three Red Feather brothers are all members of the Native diaspora, they all live with a sense of displacement. This displacement begins with Jude when his family is killed during the Sand Creek Massacre and he loses his connection with his family, culture, land, and people. He is “taught that everything about being Indian [is] wrong” and therefore learns to feel ashamed of his ancestral origins (x). This complex bleeds into his son Charles’s experience, and therefore into Charles’s descendants’ experiences. Having been torn from their land and their tribes generations before, characters like Orvil, Loother, and Lony constantly feel out of place...