Domestic Life, Canadian, Contemporary 

Thomas King is a writer of plainspoken poetry and comic poignancy. His new novel is a warm and magical story of family secrets and growing up, of a summer in the life of Truth and Bright Water, towns separated by a river that runs between Montana and an Alberta Indian reservation. It opens with a mysterious woman throwing things into the river out of a suitcase -- then jumping in after. Tecumseh and his cousin Lum see, and go to help, but she and her truck have disappeared. Other mysteries also puzzle Tecumseh -- if his mom will take his dad back; if Auntie Cassie is home to stay this time; why no one protects Lum from his father's rages. Then Tecumseh gets a job helping an artist -- Bright Water's most famous son -- with the project of a lifetime. As Truth and Bright Water prepare for the Indian Days festival, their secrets come together in a climax of tragedy, reconciliation, and love. "King is equally at home with his vivid, often comic characters and with the vibrant natural world in which their dramas are played out." -- People - from Amzon