Iron Lake

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 9

Chapters 10-19

Chapters 20-29

Chapters 30-39

Chapters 40-49

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Acceptance of Heritage and Community

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses suicide, murder, and alcohol use disorder. In addition, the source text depicts racism toward Indigenous cultures and people, and uses outdated and offensive terms for Anishinaabe and Dakota people, which are replicated in this guide only in direct quotes.

Cork O’Connor, the protagonist of Iron Lake, is an integral part of the Iron Lake community, both as sheriff and as unofficial investigator. Even when he is no longer the official sheriff, community members still look to him for help. Part of Cork’s success as an authority figure comes from the fact that he has white and Anishinaabe heritage. His Irish father and Anishinaabe mother give him membership in the area’s white and Indigenous communities; however, he is also an outsider, straddling the divide between the two cultures. Throughout the novel, Cork rediscovers his Anishinaabe identity, which becomes an integral part of who he is.

For most of his adult life, Cork lived in Chicago. Although he grew up in Iron Lake, when he left the area, he left his Anishinaabe heritage behind. Moreover, Cork admits that he has essentially passed for white since he left Iron Lake: “[I]n his way of living he’d chosen the white man’s world. With his reddish hair and fair skin, he looked more Irish than he ever would Ojibwe” (157). In Iron Lake, the two parts of Cork’s heritage are at odds, and Cork recognizes the racism that Indigenous people face in their daily lives, and he deals with it by centering his Irish heritage: “[L]ife was difficult enough as it was. To live it as Indian would have made it that much harder” (157). However, when Cork returns to Iron Lake, his memories of his childhood, his position within the community—and most notably, the mentorship of Sam Winter Moon—reawaken the Anishinaabe part of his identity that he has ignored.

When Cork and his family return to Aurora, he begins to reconnect with the Anishinaabe tradition. However, because he works within the constraints of law enforcement, he is seen as beholden to the white community—his official role as sheriff causes mistrust. Russell Blackwater is blunt, “frequently [giving] Cork a hard time [when he was] sheriff, haranguing him for being part of an establishment and a system bent on the continued subjugation of the people of his own blood” (76). Cork understands this perspective all too well, confessing that “although he never admitted it out loud, he often wrestled with the conflict in his own heritage” (76). Historically the white population has subjugated, abused, and humiliated the Anishinaabe community, and the fact that Cork belongs to both essentially puts his identity in conflict with itself.

However, when he is recalled, Cork retains the authority invested in him as a law enforcement officer without the political baggage the position holds. Although the Anishinaabe community’s trust in Cork isn’t universal and unquestioning, they are much more likely to look to him for support, illustrated by how Darla LeBeau turns to him when Paul disappears. At the end of the novel, Wanda, Tom, Darla, and Paul tell Cork the truth about their involvement with the murders because, as Tom points out, “First of all, you’re not the sheriff anymore. That’s one reason we’ve all decided to trust you” (349). They appeal to him as a member of the Anishinaabe community. Moreover, Cork shows his immersion in the Anishinaabe part of his heritage by growing closer to Henry Meloux, listening to the calls of the Windigo, and paying attention to omens like the robin that helps him find the negatives in Harlan Lytton’s shed. Cork ends the novel more fully able to support his Anishinaabe community and proud of his heritage.

Cultural Traditions and Community Response to Tragedy

Iron Lake explores the Iron Lake community’s complicated intersection of Anishinaabe and white cultures. As the region grapples with Judge Parrant’s death, Paul’s disappearance, and the aftermath of the previous year’s spearfishing horrific protest violence, Krueger highlights differing responses to these events as a way of illustrating cultural differences.

In the novel, the white and Anishinaabe communities’ responses to death are very different. At Judge Parrant’s memorial, Cork notices that “there was something calculated and distant about the carefully arranged platters of cold hors d’oeuvres” (186). He compares the scene with the memory of his mother and father’s memorials, when “neighbors had come with food that filled the house on Gooseberry Lane with the smell of things freshly baked” (186). To him, the difference—literalized in the juxtaposition of “cold hors d’oeuvres” and the warmth of “things freshly baked”—highlights the culture of the person being remembered. While the judge’s funeral is attended by colleagues and others with professional obligations, the O’Connors were mourned by friends and family: “[H]is parents had been loved by a lot of folks besides him, and it made him feel good for his mother and father and for the lives they led” (186). Cork connects this disparity to the way the two communities see death—either as a part of life that should bring survivors together or as an opportunistic moment for networking.

The two communities treat illness and infirmity differently as well. When Cork goes to visit Wally Schanno in the hospital, “He hated the sinister cleanliness of their look and smell, the hush of them as if holding a big insidious secret” (250). This antiseptic quality contrasts with the Anishinaabe way of treating illness: “[T[he scent of burning cedar and sage and the chant of the Midewiwin seemed more real and hopeful” (250). While the hospital is a cold, sterile place, where “people went […] to die” (250), the Anishinaabe project warmth through “burning cedar and sage” (250), creating a scene that is “hopeful,” rather than “sinister.”

The Lasting Effects of Historical Racism

Historically, the US government has perpetrated violent and pervasive racism toward the Anishinaabe people, breaking treaties, taking land, and enrolling Anishinaabe children in boarding schools that stripped them of their tribal identities. The effects of this attempted cultural genocide are still felt to this day. Although the worst of the government's betrayals of the Anishinaabe people are in the past, racism and racist stereotypes still endure.

Iron Lake illustrates this legacy from several perspectives. In the local white community, racism toward Anishinaabe people is a pervasive phenomenon. For example, during Stu Grantham’s meeting with Jo, he assumes that her Indigenous clients must be pro-bono, and conflates the Anishinaabe and Dakota nations. Likewise, there are racist stereotypes at work in the town’s treatment of Joe John LeBeau, a star basketball player who developed alcohol use disorder after a car accident ended his career. In response, the white community calls him a “drunk Indian,” forgetting that he was the reason behind the basketball team’s celebrated success. Even Henry Meloux, a respected Anishinaabe elder, is called “Mad Mel” by white townspeople. More broadly, many of the town’s most prosperous and powerful white men are members of the explicitly racist Minnesota Civilian Brigade. With these examples, Krueger addresses the racial tensions left over from a history of bigotry and disenfranchisement.

On the Anishinaabe side, this long and ongoing bigotry and prejudice has led to a lack of trust in the government and other institutions. Krueger explores this phenomenon through the Iron Lake reservation’s relationship with local law enforcement—even Wally Schanno, the current sheriff, notes that they won’t talk to him because he is white, asking Cork to speak with Wanda because he’s “got a little Ojibwe running through [him]” (154). He also notes, however, that it might work because of “the fact that [Cork doesn’t] wear a badge anymore” (154). Cork knows that Wally is right in his assessment. When he offers Darla help, he points out that he’s “not a cop anymore, so nothing [he’s] told is official” (268). On a purely practical level, the suspicion and disconnect between the two communities make it nearly impossible for Cork to solve the crimes. However, more importantly, the pervasiveness of racist views damages Anishinaabe peoples’ identities, culture, and relationships—portrayed in the novel via its impact on this one small, isolated region.