The power of words and of that mystical concept best called story maintains harmony in the mostly-Native world of Port Adams, the larger of the two cannery towns on Cooks´ Island, Alaska. But years ago, Jacob Chickenof, a successful fisherman, a highliner, a powerful toion, carelessly spoke harmful words that have festered until the spirit woman who holds them has her chance for revenge. Her revenge even takes the life of her son. In the end, the world can only be righted through story. Jacob sings his death song, and John manufactures evidence until his father undertakes to teach him the old ways.
Born in Indiana in 1946, Homer Kizer graduated from a small, Oregon coast high school, and entered Willamette University at sixteen. He was declared an emancipated minor during that school year. He transferred the following year to Oregon Tech where he entered the Gunsmithing program in 1964; he opened a gunshop near Siletz, Oregon, in 1967, relocated to Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula in 1974, and began writing fulltime in 1979. Kizer has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from University of Alaska Fairbanks, with post graduate work in English and Art at Idaho State University.