“Erdrich’s fictional worlds bristle with the awareness that we are all ghosts-in-waiting and that the written word is a way to communicate with people both long dead and not yet born. This is how Erdrich can write a haunting story without invoking even the slightest hint of the gothic; how she blends contemporary politics with myth without breaking a stride.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
ust finished The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.
Tookie is a Native American woman who at the beginning of the story is arrested for stealing a corpse who also has drugs on it. She spends a number of years in prison. She is released and now has a husband who is a police officer, and a step daughter who can be hard handle. She eventually finds a job at Birchback Books in Minnesota.The surprise here is that the author actually owns that book store and she appears as herself in the book, but only as a minor character.
Tookie loved working at the store, and loves serving her customers. One of her customers was a woman named Flora who came into the store very often. Upon Floras death the store becomes haunted and Flora is the culprit. This part of the story provides a lot of interesting scenarios, and provides some surprises at the end.
The story takes place during the COVID epidemic, and also involves Native American issues relrvant to today.
Louise Erdrich is a great writer and once again she hits it right on the nose with a terrific story.
Highly recommended.
Reviewed by:
Richard Franco
Added 27th January 2022
