Several of the book’s main characters struggle with a sense of identity and belonging. The most immediately apparent of these characters is John. Born to a young Indian mother but raised by white adoptive parents, John finds himself caught between two worlds, never feeling that he belongs. White hostility and racism mean that he is never truly accepted by white society. However, despite the efforts of his parents to provide him with knowledge of Indian cultures, he cannot find any real connection to his Indian heritage. He becomes fixated on the idea of being a “real” Indian, measuring himself against a partially formed, often stereotypical view of what it means to be Indian and finding himself wanting.

Even when John does begin to form relationships with other Indians, his sense of isolation and perception of himself as an outsider, as not a “real” Indian, as well as his struggles with mental health stop him from connecting with them. Instead, he retreats into a fantasy of how his life might have been, creating a rose-tinted view of life on a reservation where he is raised as a real Indian. Angry that he has be robbed of this life, he decides that he can “cure” his confusion over his identity by finding and killing the white man who is “responsible for everything that had gone wrong” (27), a desire that drives him to assault Wilson and possibly commit the crimes attributed to “the killer.