Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses suicide, murder, and alcohol use disorder. In addition, the source text depicts racism toward Indigenous cultures and people, and uses outdated and offensive terms for Anishinaabe and Dakota people, which are replicated in this guide only in direct quotes.

Cork O’Connor, the protagonist of Iron Lake, is an integral part of the Iron Lake community, both as sheriff and as unofficial investigator. Even when he is no longer the official sheriff, community members still look to him for help. Part of Cork’s success as an authority figure comes from the fact that he has white and Anishinaabe heritage. His Irish father and Anishinaabe mother give him membership in the area’s white and Indigenous communities; however, he is also an outsider, straddling the divide between the two cultures. Throughout the novel, Cork rediscovers his Anishinaabe identity, which becomes an integral part of who he is.

For most of his adult life, Cork lived in Chicago. Although he grew up in Iron Lake, when he left the area, he left his Anishinaabe heritage behind. Moreover, Cork admits that he has essentially passed for white since he left Iron Lake: “[I]n his way of living he’d chosen the white man’s world.