Louise Erdrich brings us another literary epic. Set in the farming community of Argus, North Dakota, a varied cast of Erdrich characters volleys routine with responsibility–plus farming and sugar beets and bank robberies. Characters to remember: Kismet Poe, her mother Crystal and her father Martin; her love interest Gary Geist, his mother Winnie and father Diz; bookstore owner Bev, and her smart and gentle-giant-of-a-son Hugo (who is also a second love interest of Kismet’s). Because Erdrich is a true literary citizen and bookstore owner (Birchbark Books & Native Arts in Minneapolis, MN), including a bookstore and book club in her novel are great touches. Her characters tend be readers. Gotta love that.
Jennifer: What did you think?
Lara: I think I have told you Erdrich is hit or miss with me. My absolute favorite is an oldie, The Master Butchers Singing Club, followed by The Round House and then The Sentence. I didn’t love Love Medicine or The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (but this may have been the headspace I was in and I am willing to give this one another try). As for The Mighty Red? I really liked it. I don’t think it’s her strongest story, but I think the characters kept me interested and Marin Ireland’s expert audiobook narration elevated the experience for me. What about you?
Jennifer: Well, I think I’d say that I do like reading Erdrich–and I especially love when she narrates her own books–but this one won’t be among my favorite Erdrich books. (The Sentence is my very favorite–loved it. I did love Master Butchers and I liked Future Home of the Living God quite a bit. And I liked The Night Watchman, The Round House and Love Medicine–but I never think of them. ) Why did I not love this one? I don’t think I was all that vested in the characters. Kismet was the most entertaining, but I felt her high school girlishness. Hugo was my fave. I think it’s okay to say this: Martin takes off with all of his family’s money, as well as a church fund. I really thought it felt out of place. I never understood this.
Lara, I think I’m saying a lot out of context.
Lara: You definitely are. Back it up for folks.
Jennfier: Basically, we know there’s been some kind of tragic event that haunts these people, especially Gary–but we don’t know exactly what happened until the end. Kismet, in some kind of high school sweet-but-wrong move, marries Gary–though she secretly loves Hugo. Gary’s parents are pretty ecstatic about this marriage because Gary hasn’t been “right” since the mysterious tragic event. Kismet’s mom is distraught, however. And so this is the backdrop for their drama.
Lara: See, doesn’t that sound compelling? I would want to read that if that was on the dust jacket.
Jennifer: Well, there are things I really like about Erdrich–her choice of setting (she writes close to home, her home), her choice of characters (often ordinary people with interesting things about them, like real life), her tone (very human). Her writing is confident, reliable. It’ll be good, even if it isn’t great.
Are there things you really liked?
Lara: I like a lot of the awkwardness and humor in the book, especially between Kismet and Gary, despite the fact that he’s super trauma-impacted from the mysterious event. How he proposes to Kismet and the lead-up to the big event are hilarious.
“Garrick Geist, a.k.a Gary, eighteen-years-old and pressed for time, opened the little hinged box and tipped the ring side-to-side to catch the light. The stone winked at him. He placed the box in the cup holder between the seats of his mother’s car. Many times he’d opened the box to examine the thin golden ring. Still, as soon as he’d shut the lid he wanted to check it again. The saleslady up in Fargo had said he’d purchased a wearable fleck of eternity. He wished she had not said fleck. She could have said, maybe, piece of eternity, or symbol.”
I liked this slice of small town life. Where your choices are limited, and you make the best with what you’ve got and everybody being in your business. It’s not a life for me–but I liked this glimpse.
Jennifer: I just finished Yellowface by R. F. Kuang yesterday–and that book raises the question about whether or not a writer must belong to the race or ethnic group about which they write (think American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, which we reviewed here). A flipside question might be must a writer who represents a particular ethnic group or race stick to stories relevant to such people? I’m thinking about this because Louise Erdrich often writes about her own heritage; she is part of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota. Here, she really doesn’t (for the most part).
This is an interesting comment found in a review by Fiona Mozley The New York Times: “Like Erdrich herself, Crystal and Kismet are Ojibwe; Crystal works on the land, while the Geists — who are white — own it, their enormous agribusiness bleeding the soil dry. Erdrich juxtaposes a scene in which the Geists ‘eradicate one of the most nutritious plants on earth,’ lambsquarters, from their monoculture sugar beet fields, with one of Crystal lovingly preparing the greens with virgin olive oil. The message is clear: Capitalism is killing the earth.”
This is a novel about land, the environment, exploitation.
Lara: There’s definitely a power struggle on display here, as Mozley indicates in her review and I think it’s important when we see the different ways it takes effect between Kismet and her new in-laws and how they treat her, keeping her sequestered–in part because they don’t want Gary to lose her and also because they can.
Jennifer: That’s an interesting point. Because they can. . . Though maybe this suggests a weakness in the story. It touched on a lot but, maybe, the full impact of these threads was never felt. I’m still not sure the real point of Martin (Kismet’s dad).
What have you been reading lately?
Lara: I’ve had some great reading since we last met up! The best books were Fire by John Boyne and it’s the darkest in this literary series. Like SUPER dark. The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden is a tremendous debut. Laurie Notaro’s historical fiction, The Murderess, brings new information to the Winnie Ruth Judd trunk murder case. And, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People was a delightful surprise. What have you read recently?
Jennifer: So I read Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. I think I’d say that it was pretty good–not AMAZING. I read two books by Percival Everett: Erasure and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. I’m a little convinced Everett is a brainiac. He’s worth reading. And I read Water and Earth (these are two separate books) by John Boyne, recommended by you: I loved them both and anxiously await Fire and Air (he’s doing The Elements).
Up Next!
Chris Whitaker’s All The Colors In The Dark and our year-end recap!