So Many Meanings

Quietly captivating, this story set in the 1950s tells about a bereaved Native American family and their individual attempts to cope with grief, as much as people were allowed to in days past. A father and daughter (Kit) live unassumingly in a rural setting, she, fishing to augment their food and he, working long weeks and carving little wooden huntsmen on Sundays. As a change to their workaday life, a pretty and kind lady moves into a cabin along Kit's fishing route, and they become friends. When a busybody blares misinformation about the nature of their friendship, a series of events is set into motion that seems impossible to undo. Kit's sagacity is front and center as she plans a reversal of her family's plight. Tense and with constant eyes to the blatant racism of the time, it was riveting to the end.