Song Catcher

Grace Howard, a Lakota woman from the Pine Ridge reservation, once reached the brink of stardom as a rock singer until the pressures of it drove her to drugs and oblivion. The catalyst to get clean, however, came with the birth of her physically deformed son, Jamie. Twelve years later, she is singing in a North Dakota bar to help pay for his ongoing medical treatment when a power surge through her microphone one night triggers a mystical experience. She has a vision and during it hears some unique music that will change her life forever. Jamie, a budding poet, has a strange dream at precisely the moment of Grace's vision and begins to produce lyrics of a standard well beyond his years. Their supernatural experiences ignite a special songwriting partnership and they begin to craft an album that melds the Lakota songs of an ancestor and other cultural music with modern rock-a combination that will eventually rocket to the top of the charts. Estranged from her people for many years, as the music gains popularity it compels Grace to make peace with her past. She returns to Pine Ridge and learns of the desecration of her musician-ancestor's spiritual resting place by the construction of a golf course. Enraged, she decides to use the music's massive popularity to try and stop the development. It sets in motion a series of events that will test the strength of her soul and put the lives of everyone she holds dear on the line. A heartfelt exploration of the resurrection of cultural and personal spirit, Graham McDonald's second installment of his spiritual trilogy examines the clash between European and indigenous cultures with bracing honesty. A haunting, compelling story full of the synchronicities of life and powers we can neither see nor touch, Song Catcher is as heartbreaking as it is transformative.