People of the Whale: A Novel by award-winning Chickasaw wrier offers readers a story about a Vietnam veteran who returns home after the war to find that all has changed. The hero, Thomas W. Just, was raised in a northern Pacific Coast village where his grandfather was a man with great spirital powers. Forced by peer pressure Thomas enlists and finds himself in a wartorn country and far from family and his childhood sweetheart. Thomas has a son with his wife Ruth and also a daughter with a Vietnamese woman. Both children are worlds apart as Thomas spends ten years in Vietnam with his second family. His son at home grows up without a father but becomes the inheritor of his grandfather's spiritual understanding. When the community decides to reestablish their ancient whale hunt, Thomas returns to find tradegy and loss. Conflict and sorrow are themes that follow Thomas throughout the narrative. But it is the women in the story that carry their love to the end. A remarkable story that combines an intriguing plot with the environmental and spirtual awarness of Indigenous Peoples.