Betty leaves the Ojibwe reservation with her four children to make a new life in Minneapolis. Her younger son finds romance on a soon-to-be demolished train--"The Hiawatha"--while his older brother takes a dangerous job scaling skyscrapers. Their fates collide in a tale of crime, punishment, and redemption.

Recently widowed, and encouraged by government relocation schemes to move Native Americans off their reservations, Betty takes her four young children from their Ojibwe roots to make a new life in Minneapolis. Her younger son Lester finds romance on the soon-to-be-demolished train, The Hiawatha, while his older brother Simon takes a dangerous job scaling skyscrapers. Their fates collide, and result in a tale of crime, punishment, and redemption.

An elegy to the American dream, and to the sometimes tragic experience of the Native Americans who helped to build it, The Hiawatha is a powerful novel that confirms David Treuer's status as a young writer of rare talent.