Book V of the Native Liberty Series (Native puppeteers from the White Earth Reservation search for the meaning of life)
Theatre of Chance
is the final novel in the series that started with
Blue Ravens
and continued with
Native Tributes, Satie on the Seine,
and
Waiting for Wovoka
. A group of native puppeteers from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota resume their adventures, traveling from White Earth to an existential colony: the urban reservation in Minneapolis. Basile, the native elder, has become an editorial writer, and the stowaways continue their creative puppet parleys in the context of the historical moment, including the election of Richard Nixon as president. Dummy Trout and the other stowaways secure a houseboat and, with the loyal mongrels, return to French Portage Narrows in Lake of the Woods, the birthplace of Dummy. There, for the first time in more than seventy years, she whispers a few words, ending the shamanic silence of her marvelous encounters on the White Earth Reservation and in the native existential colony of Minneapolis.