As the Hiawatha begins, a young man is released from prison after serving ten years for murder. How he got there, and what will happen to him next, are the questions at the heart of David Treuer's novel.

As Simon settles into the American Indian neighborhood of Minneapolis where his troubles began, we witness the events that both haunt and shape his family. Recently widowed, and encouraged by government relocation schemes to move Native Americans off their reservations, Simon's mother, Betty, takes her four young children from the woodlands of her Ojibwe tribe to make a new life in the city.

Betty struggles to keep her family and her dignity intact, while her younger son, Lester, finds romance on a soon-to-be-demolished train, and Simon secretly protects his mother by taking a dangerous job building skyscrapers that, once completed, will never welcome him.

Unfolding to reveal the dark truths that have damaged Simon's family, The Hiawatha is a moving portrait of a family, an exploration of the often hidden role played by Native Americans in city life, and a fast-paced story of murder that moves effortlessly between the natural and the man-made world.