A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper
follows a Dakhóta family's struggle to preserve their way of life, and
their sacrifices to protect what matters most.
Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a
former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of
the origins of the Dakhóta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn't
return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent
to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato--where the reserved,
bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that
transcends the damaged legacies they've inherited.
On a winter's day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood
home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her
white husband's farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is
threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company.
Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for
family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the
process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls
of iron--women who have protected their families, their traditions, and
a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss,
through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools.
Weaving together the voices of four indelible women, The Seed Keeper
is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original
relationship to the seeds and, through them, to our ancestors.
