Native American novel brings new life to Lake Superior’s dead

Craig A. Brockman’s Dead of November is a supernatural thriller that will enchant readers with Native American lore, ghostly apparitions, exotic location, and homage to lost love. Set in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, one of the oldest cities in the Midwest on the shores of Lake Superior, the novel draws on the city’s historic heritage as a former Native American gathering place in St. Mary’s Rapids, plus later the site of Fort Brady, and today home to Soo Locks and a Native American-owned casino. All of these places figure in history, mixing the past with the present in a whirlwind of confusion about what is real, what is legend, and what results when the two merge into a new reality.

The story begins when his old colleague, Ron, asks Adam Knowles, a psychiatrist practicing in Lower Michigan, to return to Sault Sainte Marie to help out at the clinic. Adam leaves out of obligation, although he knows it will mean facing his difficult past, in which the love of his life drowned and in which he earned a reputation in the city for helping people who thought they were seeing ghosts. Adam doesn’t know that people see ghosts again, which is why Ron wants him to return.

Ron arranges for Adam to stay at an old inn in Sault owned by Maggie, a Scotswoman attuned to the supernatural. Adam also has a friend, Cam, who reappears in his life right now. Cam went astray years before, although Adam is not very clear why. Now Cam is apparently hallucinating upon seeing apparitions of Native American warriors from the past, among other things.

Adam begins to realize that something sinister is happening when Maggie receives a visit from an out-of-area Potawatomi healer named James Graves. Graves has built a following among certain members of the local Ojibwa tribe, but he also appears to be trying to create trouble. Maggie and Graves have a private meeting that makes Adam curious about Graves’ intentions. He hopes to get answers when Graves invites him to a private meeting at the casino. Adam is surprised by what he learns in the meeting and more surprised to find himself in a semi-conscious state that makes him suspect that he has been drugged. Fortunately, a young woman who works at the casino, Gracie Bird, is also suspicious of Graves and comes to Adam’s rescue.

As the novel continues, the characters learn more about Graves and the plethora of ghostly sightings that local residents are experiencing. They soon discover that Graves is trying to unleash a legendary horror, which would have dire consequences for everyone if he succeeds.

Brockman consciously writes about everything in this book, from psychiatry to local history to the Ojibwa tradition. She has lived and worked in Sault Sainte Marie with Lake Superior State University and the Indian Health Service, becoming entangled in the area she has chosen for her subject.

Although the novel is full of the supernatural, it never becomes cheesy or corny. The Lake Superior dead are not normal zombies, but appearances that need explanation. The characters are well developed, many of them have pasts that need to be healed or that inform their actions in the novel.

What impressed me most was Brockman’s use of Native American tradition. He has clearly researched everything from Ojibwa history to local archeology and superstition. I learned a lot about the native culture from this book, all presented in a way that is always entertaining and relevant to the plot. Brockman’s ability to blend the supernatural with reality is especially impressive, making the reader’s suspension of disbelief never waver as we move from a dangerous and climactic moment to a tender discussion about forgiveness, all fueled by a lofty sense that what we know as reality may only be a veil for a larger metaphysical world that we barely yet understand.

Dead of November is the kind of book you can get so engrossed in that you’ll have to stop to remind yourself it’s just a story, and even when you close the book, the wailing waves of Lake Superior will continue to haunt you. I wish there were more like this.