Voyages of Discovery: An American Romance

Finn Wheeler, a journalist from New France, Quebec, is assigned to cover the US presidential bid of Senator Joseph Anderton, a charismatic Black politician. Motivated by the discovery of a family heirloom, he decides to combine the assignment with an investigation into the origins of the celebrated stone buffalo monument in North Dakota. The killing of an unarmed Black man in the US and a similar killing in New France on a Mohawk Reservation sparks violent protests in both countries. A demonstration in New France turns into a riot and an orgy of destruction. A notorious agitator names Finn as one of the principal organisers of the demonstration. To avoid possible arrest and detention, Finn crosses the border into the US to pursue his coverage of Anderton and the looming American election. Driving across the United States, he witnesses America in a state of near anarchy as public anger over racial injustice explodes. Once in North Dakota, he falls in love with Evie, a young Mandan woman, and becomes obsessed with ’unriddling’ the enigmatic stone buffalo. Shortly after winning the Republican presidential nomination, Anderton is assassinated, and a deeply fractured United States teeters on the brink of civil war. A shocked Finn reports on the crisis while at the same time struggling to come to terms with startling discoveries about his ancestral legacy.