Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

Drew Hayden Taylor, an Indigenous Canadian of the Anishnawbe nations, published Motorcycles & Sweetgrass in 2010. The narrative touches on elements common to Taylor’s other writing: the relationships of First Nations bands (tribes) to current authorities and governments and traditional Indigenous religious beliefs. The novel’s fable-like premise is that the trickster demigod Nanabush might have survived despite modern Indigenous peoples’ lack of belief.

Taylor’s large body of work has received numerous awards: He is a noted playwright, journalist, short fiction author, and TV scriptwriter. Motorcycles & Sweetgrass, his first novel for adult readers, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.

This guide references the 2021 Penguin Modern Classics edition.

Content Warning: Taylor, a member of the Anishnawbe/Ojibway First Nation, uses a variety of names when describing his nation and other Indigenous groups, often with ironic/cynical intent. This guide refers to these groups and individuals by their national names or the term “Indigenous” when not quoting the text directly.

Plot Summary

Nanabush, the trickster demigod of Indigenous mythology, tries in vain to convince a teenage Anishnawbe girl not to attend the Catholic residential school where the Canadian government sends Indigenous children. Once in the school, she loses her Indigenous name and becomes Lillian.

Decades later, Nanabush senses a dying Lillian reaching out. The aged Lillian tells Maggie, her youngest daughter and chief of the Otter Lake First Nation band of the Anishnawbe, that someone is about to bring magic into Maggie’s life. When Nanabush barges into Lillian’s bedroom, she kisses him passionately, asks him for two favors, and dies. After the funeral, Nanabush finds Virgil, Maggie’s 13-year-old son, and reveals that both favors involve the boy.

Nanabush finds Maggie extremely attractive. After one of her tires blows out, Nanabush appears on his motorcycle and gives her a ride to her brother’s garage. As a thank you, Maggie invites him for supper. The next evening, Maggie goes out for drinks with friends. As they discuss the motorcycle stranger, “John,” Nanabush enters and asks Maggie if he can make her supper the following evening. She accepts and he departs, leaving the women enthralled. That night, Virgil and his cousin Dakota see Nanabush dancing on a dock overlooking Otter Lake.

Alarmed about “John’s” intentions towards his mother, Virgil asks his mother’s reclusive youngest brother, Wayne, for help. Meanwhile, Maggie and Nanabush take a picnic supper to Otter Lake and have sex. Later, Wayne and Virgil find Nanabush on the dock, engaged in a fierce debate with angry raccoons, and Wayne recognizes him as the demigod. The next morning, as Wayne tries to convince Maggie that “John” is Nanabush, Dakota tells Virgil that after she saw Nanabush and Maggie on the dock the previous night, Nanabush came to her deck, and they talked at length. Dakota is now in love with Nanabush. That night, Wayne and Virgil discuss how to save Maggie from Nanabush. Wayne believes that Nanabush is truly dangerous but also, being half-human, can be destroyed.

Nanabush decides to grant Maggie’s wish to keep the new tribal land pristine. He breaks into the archives of a natural history museum and steals a variety of prehistoric bones and artifacts. His intention is to plant them on the newly acquired land, turning it into an archeological site and saving it from development. Afterwards, Nanabush has a dream in which he converses with Jesus, comparing their religions and their roles.

Dakota cuts school after lunch to find Nanabush. Rushing after her, Virgil and Wayne confront the demigod and tell him to leave Otter Lake. Wayne and Nanabush begin a lengthy fight that takes to the trees. Wayne eventually descends, stunned and injured. Virgil and Dakota walk him to the clinic.

In the midst of a press conference in which Maggie accepts the new 300-acre plot, a reporter stumbles onto a human bone protruding from the ground. As reporters besiege Maggie, Nanabush appears on his motorcycle and whisks her away. He explains that he stole the bones from the museum and planted them to ensure the land would not be developed. Enraged, Maggie attacks him, threatening to have him arrested if he is not off the Reserve in 30 minutes. Virgil encounters Nanabush and the two have a conciliatory, explanatory conversation. Nanabush gives Virgil a ride home, then rides off.

Two weeks after Nanabush’s departure, Wayne is living with the newly mellow Maggie. Dakota studies stories of Nanabush and the cousins learn martial arts from Wayne. The day Nanabush left Otter Lake, an Anishnawbe man named Michael Mukwa saw an antique motorcycle cruising atop the water.