Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

Lost in the Dream of Old Man Coyote by R.J. Hobson (2010)

This novel about an Indigenous veteran from the US Northwest restoring an old motorcycle to go on a vision quest has themes in common with Taylor’s novel, in particular, considering the place of First Nations people in today’s world through the lens of ancient Indigenous mythology.

The Adventures of Nanabush: Ojibway Indian Stories by Emerson Coatsworth and Kagige (1980)

This compilation features Indigenous tales about Nanabush as the creator of the world, shapeshifter, and immanent trickster god.

“Leda and the Swan” by William Butler Yeats (1922)

This poem is about a story from ancient Greek mythology: the rape of Leda by the god Zeus, in the form of a swan. The Irish Yeats uses the story as an analogy in which Zeus is England and Leda is Ireland—Yeats’s distress at the suffering his native land has endured and his use of sexual and violent metaphors to convey the damage connects thematically to Taylor’s novel.

• “Leda and the Swan” on SuperSummary