"An affecting portrait of his childhood home, Leech Lake Indian Reservation, and his people, the Ojibwe."--"The New York Times"

"In a book that is part memoir, part journalistic expose and part cultural history, novelist Treuer offers a movingly plainspoken account of reservation life... Powerful, important reading."--"Kirkus Reviews"

"In this, his first foray into non-fiction, novelist David Treuer has given us a gritty, raw, and thoroughly authentic look at reservation life -- as experienced from the inside out. Here is modern America glimpsed through a different membrane, narrated in a fresh new voice. In this searching, at times heartbreaking, but often triumphant melange of history, journalism, and memoir, Treuer loudly proclaims that all reports of the American Indian's demise have been greatly exaggerated." --Hampton Sides, bestselling author of "Blood and Thunder"

"An invaluable study and vivid account of problematic life on our reservations by a writer--a very good writer!--raised 'on the rez' who knows what he's talking about only too well and also knows how to tell a story, lots of stories, that document and effectively banish a number of misconceptions still held by white society. Highly recommended." --Peter Matthiessen

""Rez Life" is a powerful, poignant, and beautifully written history/memoir that weaves together strands of joy and tragedy, empathy and greed, hope and despair, and tradition and wrenching change. It is an important and insightful book that should be read by anyone interested in the fascinating role of reservations in America's past, present, and future." --Eric Jay Dolin, author of "Fur, Fortune and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America"