Chenoo: A Novel by Joseph Bruchac (review)

In Chenoo, Joseph Bruchac once again illustrates his ability to create worlds and characters that draw readers in and make them want to stay well past the last page. At the heart of the novel is the story of the Chenoo, or Wendigo, a monster that is greed personified. In the traditional Abenaki narratives that Bruchac’s protagonist, Jacob Neptune, tells us, the Chenoo are former humans whose insatiable hunger and greed have turned them into cannibals with hearts of ice. In the modern world, the Chenoo is just as greedy, but cannibalism is now a metaphor for the consumption of resources, land, and identities. Like the traditional tales that shape Neptune’s life, Chenoo is a lesson about the ways greed can extinguish our very humanity.

As the novel opens, we follow Jacob through a dream as he is being chased by an unseen horror—in fact, it is not Jacob who is being chased but a woman he has to help find later in the narrative. Neptune is abruptly awoken from this opening dream by a phone call from his best friend, Dennis, who asks him to solve two grisly murders at the Children of the Mountain activist camp. As the novel progresses, we learn that he is “mteowlin [a person who] knows how to see . . . power, sense it. Call helpers. Find things” (179), and his dreams are a product of that power. His mteowlin abilities, along with his Special Forces training and keen observation skills, make Jacob Neptune a formidable opponent against the greed that would devour his people and their land.

Reminiscent of the recent Idle No More movement, the Children of the Mountain have taken over a recently closed state park in both an assertion of tribal sovereignty and a play for federal recognition. Just as the members of AIM who retook Alcatraz cited the Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Children of the Mountain, a Penacook activist group, cite the federal Nonintercourse Act as evidence of their right to the land. This act, Bruchac explains, “forbade the states or private individuals to buy or take Indian land” (157). And sadly, just like AIM, the Children of the Mountain are met with a news blackout that prevents the rest of the country from knowing what’s really happening and are harassed by state and federal authorities. Further complicating the investigation are the factions the Penacook are split into: those in favor of casino and land development, those who support sovereignty, and the people fighting to get their candidate chosen as the new chief. The big problem for Neptune and the reader is that we don’t always know who is allied with which faction.

Bruchac masterfully addresses the motivations that drive each of the factions and illustrates the problems and advantages that underlie each. Casinos and land development have brought in significant revenue for numerous tribes; this money can go to rebuilding community infrastructure, health care, education, and numerous other beneficial areas. And while the outside land developers in Chenoo will clearly make the most profit, the benefits to the Penacooks are clear, “like the Pequots [using casino money and] building new homes for their people who lived in shacks and rundown trailers before” (31). However, should the casino, a “mini Lost Wages,” as Neptune calls it, and land development be allowed in sacred areas? What is the spiritual cost of such constructs? Are casinos the symbolic representation of greed or of progress? Furthermore, does the move to support sovereignty and recognition signal a lust for power, or is it legitimate? The same could be asked of those seeking a change in chieftaincy. Regardless, there are “so many players, so many historical and hysterical ins and outs in our current case, that feeling merely dizzy when considering the issues meant that one was in relative equilibrium. Things were not in balance” (32). It’s a testament to Bruchac’s skill that while Neptune feels out of balance, the reader does not. While...