In this anthology of ten short stories of Native America, Death By Bitter Waters embraces the seemingly ordinary lives of average people—Kate, connecting with a son nearly thirty years after losing him as an infant to parental abduction; Freddie, whose alcoholism amid the aftermath of a violent profession is tempered by a loving woman; Arlene, returning home to live with her parents when her long-standing marriage is suddenly ripped apart; Tiki, who struggles with her mother's unexpected death; Aspen and Jillie, a lesbian couple raising two small children in a reactionary community; and Thelonius, a cop whose life is forever changed following a traumatic brain injury. More than just the sum of average people engaged in average lives, Death By Bitter Waters is a fictional chronicle of contemporary Red Power in northeastern California, of a healing lifeway risen from the ashes of genocide and cultural annihilation following two centuries of collective trauma.