Firekeeper's Daughter

Firekeeper’s Daughter (2021) is a debut young adult thriller by Angeline Boulley. The novel’s plot centers on Daunis Fontaine, an 18-year-old girl with a French mother and an Ojibwe father, who often feels torn between cultures. When she witnesses a murder and goes undercover for the FBI, Daunis uses her knowledge of both cultures to unravel the case. Themes include navigating ancestry, embracing community, and the dangers of punitive justice. Boulley is a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians located between the Great Lakes of Northern Michigan. Boulley had a long career in Indian Education before writing Firekeeper’s Daughter. She also served as her tribe’s Education Director/Assistant Executive Director before becoming the Director for Indian Education at the US Department of Education. This groundbreaking novel garnered the attention of Higher Ground, Michele and Barack Obama’s production company, which picked the novel for a Netflix TV deal.

Note: Firekeeper’s Daughter contains drug abuse, suicide, rape, and relationship abuse.

Plot Summary

Daunis Fontaine is torn between two worlds and families: her white French/Italian mother’s side and her father’s Ojibwe Firekeeper’s side. Before the story even begins in Firekeeper’s Daughter, Daunis has experienced major loss and grief. Her father died when she was seven years old, her Uncle David died just a few months before the story begins, and her grandmother had a stroke shortly after Uncle David’s death. Daunis defers her upcoming enrollment at the University of Michigan to stay with her mother, who has taken both losing her brother and her mother’s illness very hard.

As the pages slowly introduce the characters, there is a sense that something bad is at play in this community—Daunis’s best friend Lily’s ex-boyfriend is struggling with drugs, there is political unrest as the tribal election is underway, and it isn’t completely clear yet what happened to Uncle David. According to Daunis’s Gramma Pearl, bad things always happen to people in groups of three.

Daunis’s brother Levi, the “hockey god,” asks her to befriend the new kid on the team, Jamie Johnson. Jamie and his uncle Ron have moved to town for Ron to fill Daunis’s Uncle David’s teaching position at the high school. As Daunis becomes close to Jamie, she realizes that his story just doesn’t add up. While Jamie has question after question for Daunis about her life and family, he reveals very little about himself.

One night, Lily’s boyfriend kills her and then turns the gun on himself. Daunis then finds out that “Jamie” is not a high school hockey star and transfer student, but instead a 22-year-old undercover cop who is part of an investigation into the meth being made and distributed by someone in Daunis’s community. Ron and Jamie confront Daunis about picking up where her Uncle David left off as their Confidential Informant (CI) in the investigation. Daunis initially balks at the request, but then agrees once she realizes that she can truly help her community by doing so. Daunis is a perfect candidate for this kind of work because she is a scientist, which means she is equipped to help the FBI figure out how someone is making this meth by practicing making the meth herself. Moreover, the FBI believes that whatever is making this batch of meth especially potent is coming from some traditional medicine—Daunis is practiced in her culture and traditions thanks to her Aunt Teddie on her Firekeeper’s side.

As the investigation intensifies, Daunis finds it difficult to see and understand what is true. What does come to light is that Jamie and Daunis have real feelings for each other that developed while they were “pretend dating” to cover up the amount of time they were spending together during the investigation.

When two of Daunis’s former teammates and friends who are also Native, Robin and Heather, die with meth on them, Daunis knows that they are overlooking something important. Daunis veers many times from exactly what Ron and Jamie want her to do as an informant, but she knows her strength in this investigation is that she is not just helping the FBI: Her real goal is to help her community.

Daunis’s search for the truth about the meth leads her away from the FBI’s ideas about hallucinogenic mushrooms being the added ingredient as she spends time with elders in her community and learns about the “Little People” who have been known to warn people who are getting involved in things they shouldn’t be. Daunis also learns about “bad medicine,” like the medicine she suspects Travis added to the meth he was making.

Daunis eventually uncovers the truth: her brother and his friends are making the meth and distributing it, along with a few parents in the hockey scene. Even the Tribal Judge, Levi’s mother, plays a part by covering up the meth operation. She kidnaps Daunis and Jamie in her efforts to protect her son and their money-making business, a scheme that leads to a police chase and Daunis’s hospitalization.

While Daunis grieves the betrayal of her brother and others in her community, she receives the gift of clear vision (seeing people for who they truly are) by the end of the novel. Daunis and Jamie part ways before Daunis gets out of the hospital for the injuries she sustained during the kidnapping and subsequent chase, but they keep the possibility of being together someday open.

Ten months after the drug ring bust, Daunis announces her decision to attend the University of Hawaii to study ethnobotany and traditional medicine. Inspired by her elders and ancestors, Daunis fully believes that the way to exist in the now is to keep an open door to the past.