"Poverty" has always been more than three wind-battered homes and an old Catalina that doubles as a bedroom. It sits on a barren landscape that was once peppered with one-hundred-year-old pines and now houses as many mysteries as it does lives. Jeannette, Duke, and Ellis were the first to make Poverty a home. They are the guardians, the ones who remember what was once taken from them. Chapter by chapter, as each character takes up the narrative, we learn about the way life is lived on this Indian reservation. Here rumors swirl like the snow drifts that alter the landscape in the bitter winter. It was the snow that first brought them Donovan, the boy who acts as caretaker for Little, the strange younger brother who was born with fused claws for hands. All through his short and enigmatic life Little had only one word: you.

"Treuer has fashioned a moody story with fascinating characters and an ever-evolving plot that highlights the absurd disparities between the rich and the poor." Kathleen Hughes, Booklist

"Treuer is a writer of remarkable strengths. He is posed , lyrical, compassionate, knowledgeable, wise, and inventive." Abby Frucht, The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A full and subtle protrait of Indian life." James Polk, The Washington Post Book World

"Treuer's portrait of a downtrodden people unfolds in slow, carefully measured prose, packed with descriptive detail. An ambitious first novel about America's rural poor; recommended for all larger fiction collections." Edward B. St. John, Library Journal

David Treuer is Ojibwe. He grew up at Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota, where he now lives. He is a graduate of Princeton University.