The events in the book occur in cycles. Events that happen to earlier generations are resolved in later ones. It takes a cyclical view of history. It begins with the narrator and ends with the narrator. LaDuke said many Americans don't think in a cyclical way.
Society is a consequence of what happened long ago.
The book's time line begins in the Minnesota of the 1860s and ends in the future. Most who write about a future that's bleak. I don't look at it as bleakly as some others. LaDuke said the book isn't an autobiography, but parts of it are based on real people and events in her life. It's just getting to White Earth now.