Jerkwater by Jamie Zerndt

Set in Mercer, Wisconsin, where tensions over Native American fishing rights are escalating, JERKWATER is told from three alternating points-of-view:

Shawna Reynolds, a young Ojibwa woman who doesn’t much care for white people to begin with, and who is quickly being pulled in a direction she may no longer have a desire to resist;

Kay O’Brien, Shawna’s 64-year-old, usually drunk, neighbor who is still grieving the loss of her husband;

And Kay’s son, Douglas, who now finds himself in charge of running the family’s auto repair shop while dealing with his own feelings of guilt.

JERKWATER is a story about the racial tensions churning just beneath the surface of what often appears to be placid, everyday American life.