Irene America

The central protagonist of Shadow Tag is Irene America, a Native American woman who lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband, Gil, and their three children: Florian, Riel, and Stoney. Prior to the birth of her children, Irene was “a very promising scholar” (7) whose work centered on the Canadian politician Louis Riel. At the start of the novel, Irene works on completing her PhD thesis. She is “an arresting woman… [who] wore her hair coarsely tangled and painstakingly applied unfashionable shades of makeup… She was rangy, dark, tall, and inarticulate” (20). Irene’s mother, Winnie Jane, raised her daughter by herself, imbuing Irene with a keen sense of independence and a strong understanding of her heritage as an Indigenous woman.

The novel opens with Irene’s discovery that her husband, Gil, has been reading her diary. Gil, an artist who achieved success through his many portraits of Irene...