At age 17, Cal Burton, half-Ute Indian, never gave much thought to his heritage. But when his parents suddenly divorce, Cal's mother uproots him and his siblings from Spokane, WA, to live with her on the Utah reservation where she grew up. Angry and resentful, Cal is at first put off by the poor standard of living on the reservation. Things only get worse and he's shocked when confronted with blatant racism in town. And here, people seem to recoil when he mentions his name. On top of it all, the bigoted local sheriff seems to have it in for him. When Cal's world is suddenly rocked by a terrible tragedy and he unearths several shocking facts surrounding his aunt's death at a nearby lake twenty years before, he vows to let nothing stop him from getting at the truth. Suspenseful and richly layered, I Am Nuchu is a coming-of-age story about a teen wrestling with his identity as he finds himself caught between two drastically different worlds.
