SUNDOGS AND SINNERS
Sundogs and Sinners is a tale of love and hate, nurture and neglect,
traditions and taboos that shines cold light upon the dangers of chasing
what cannot be caught.Jasmine is the daughter of opposite worlds:
Angela, her mother, the white privileged debutant from the upper
echelons of Fargo’s wealthiest and politically empowered and Jasmine’s
biological father, Dave, the eighth of nine children of a Minneapolis
single Ojibwe mother. Driven by the death of her elder teenage brother
and her resentment at having always resided in his shadow, Angela looks
for her missing emotional pieces in Dave’s “otherness” which results in a
torrid, tumultuous, but temporary, bond and the unplanned birth of
their child. A decade later, Jasmine lives in the affluent Fargo fold of
Angela’s and Angela’s husband, Lars’ socially prominent families.
Though Jasmine seems to have everything, she now is the one in search of
missing pieces. Angela never speaks of Dave; Dave hasn’t had contact
with their daughter since she was two-years old, and Jasmine wants to
know why. The larger looming question is what, if any, part does Dave
being Ojibwe play in Jasmine’s identity.When Rosella, an Ojibwe girl
adopted at infancy by non-Native parents, moves to town, she and Jasmine
become fast middle school friends. Together, they face off with mean
girls armed with racial slurs, confront the complexity of first crushes,
and, inevitably, explore Jasmine’s ever-growing need to know the truth
about her mother, her legally adoptive father, and, most of all, Dave.As
Jasmine pushes the search forward, Angela pulls back from her daughter
and husband as the trauma and twisted urges of her youth re-awaken, and
Angela pursues the elusive missing pieces she has yet to find. As mother
and daughter unwittingly move closer to the same destination, secrets,
lies, and raw realities threaten to destroy everyone involved. While
some pieces are discovered, others will be lost forever, and Jasmine
will be left to build who she truly is out of the ones that remain.
