SOURCE: “Hiawatha Goes Hollywood,” in New York Times Book Review, Vol. 101, October 20, 1996, p. 13.

In the following review Bolotin provides a summary of the plot of By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee.

The creative muse manifests itself in many forms. Even Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's “Song of Hiawatha” has provided its share of inspiration, albeit mostly to parodists. But one has to wonder what it was about the famous narrative poem that got Tama Janowitz's juices going. Could it have been the notion of an innocent culture heading for its inevitable destruction, or the image of the magnificent Hiawatha revenging the sins perpetrated against his mother? Was it simply the stupefying tom-tom cadence? As my kids would say: Whatever. Or as I would say: No matter why you decide to set a novel by the shores of Gitchee Gumee, you may get soaked.

By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee, Ms...