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.