Louise Erdrich's The Sentence
So I always love whatever Erdrich writes, but man, I LOVED THIS. It's a bit of a departure in that it’s not set in Erdrich's usual fictional world—BECAUSE IT'S SET IN THE MF-ING BOOKSTORE THAT SHE OWNS IN REAL LIFE! Are you kidding me?! I am pretty sure all the characters are fictional (except for, you know, the owner Louise, who appears here and there in the background), and probably her store is not actually haunted by a very annoying deceased customer? Aaaaanyway, the protagonist and narrator is Tookie, who gets a job at the bookstore after being released from prison (her sixty year sentence was commuted), and at first you’re like, this is going to be a fun and sweet book! Tookie has an interesting personal life and their coworkers are an amazing cast of characters! And then you get to a heading that reads “February 2020” and the realities of the past year and a half hit you in the face like a brick (not just Covid—the bookstore is in Minneapolis, and the sadness of the George Floyd murder and the protests play a part). Not to mention the ghost going from annoying to slightly more sinister. And yet Erdrich somehow brings it all home. So good. A.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on November 9th.
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