The best books destroy you, overwhelm you with deep feelings – despair, anger, love, defiance, frustration, yearning, bitterness, pain. In her debut novel, former journalist and two-time Journey Prize finalist Krista Foss elicits precisely this reaction as she explores the ugly realities of aboriginal land disputes.

When suburban development sparks a protest that escalates to a road blockade, the people of a Mohawk reserve and a small town in the heart of tobacco-growing country are pitted against each other. Foss delves into complex issues, layering perspectives from two families on opposite sides of the blockade, slowly and beautifully weaving a present-tense tale with remembered events to provide context and personal histories.

When Shayna and her aunt, Helen Fallingbrook, form the blockade in an effort to preserve the land, developers Ella and Mitch Bain begin to unravel, as does their increasingly angry and reckless son, Las. At the same time, the Bains’ daughter, Stephanie, blossoms from a meek people-pleaser to a wilful teenager who falls in love with Nate, an aboriginal high-school dropout. The town’s mayor and the police are drawn into the conflict, and when Shayna’s teenage cousin is found beaten almost to death, people on both sides must decide how much to reveal about what happened to her.

The narrative bears a striking resemblance to the events at Caledonia, Ontario, where Six Nations protesters have occupied disputed land for more than five years. It also evokes memories of Oka, Duffey Lake, Ipperwash, Elsipogtog – the list could go on. Foss deftly weaves in details about the abhorrent historical treatment of aboriginal peoples in Canada: children torn from their families and communities to be sent to residential schools, status and non-status Indian designations, land and treaty rights, inadequate housing, limits on self-determination, and deep-seated racism.

At the end of this searing novel there is no victor. But there is a ray of hope, the possibility that our history and our present will not also be our future.