Sentința

by Louise Erdrich, Andreea Florescu (Translator)

În plină pandemie, o fantomă bântuie o mică librărie din Minneapolis. Încercând să rezolve misterul, Tookie, proaspăt angajată după zece ani de închisoare, se străduiește să-și înțeleagă și locul într-o lume ieșită din matcă.

Tookie e forțată să privească în interiorul ei pentru a-și înțelege propriul trecut și a-și ispăși greșelile. Condamnarea la integrarea într-o cultură înlocuitoare, care doar se vrea înfloritoare, se plătește scump. Într-o societate dominată de ură și cruzime, personajele din Sentința se regăsesc și supraviețuiesc prin iubire, prietenie, cărți, familie și moștenire culturală. Lupta pentru păstrarea propriei memorii și identități nu e ușoară, însă resentimentele și disperarea fac loc în cele din urmă compasiunii și solidarității.

Genres: Fiction, Book Club, Fantasy, Audiobook, Magical Realism, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

432 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 2021

About the author

Louise Erdrich is one of the most gifted, prolific, and challenging of American novelists. Her fiction reflects aspects of her mixed heritage: German through her father, and French and Ojibwa through her mother. She is the author of many novels, the first of which, Love Medicine, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the last of which, The Round House, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2012. She lives in Minnesota.

source: Amazon

Reviews

[Ron Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

The coronavirus pandemic is still raging away and God knows we’ll be reading novels about it for years, but Louise Erdrich’s “The Sentence” may be the best one we ever get. Neither a grim rehashing of the lockdown nor an apocalyptic exaggeration of the virus, her book offers the kind of fresh reflection only time can facilitate, and yet it’s so current the ink feels wet.

Such is the mystery of Erdrich’s work, and “The Sentence” is among her most magical novels, switching tones with the felicity of a mockingbird. She notes that the Native American language of her ancestors “includes intricate forms of human relationships and infinite ways to joke,” and she fully explores that spectrum in these pages: A zany crime caper gives way to the horrors of police brutality; lives ruined flip suddenly into redemption; the deaths of half-a-million Americans play out while a grumpy ghost causes mischief. But the abiding presence here is love.

And books — so many books. This is a novel packed to its spine with other books. I was keeping track of each one mentioned until I discovered Erdrich’s appendix, which lists more than 150 beloved titles. Be prepared: “The Sentence” is that rare novel about the life-transforming effect of literature that arrives with its own. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

[Dorie - Cats&Books :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

**Reread with my book club and have changed my rating to a 4* based on Ms. Erdrich's wonderful writing. It was a case of the wrong book at the wrong time for me -- now that the nightmare that is/was Covid isn't as intense, I was able to appreciate the book more

First off I’d like to state that I’m a huge fan of Ms. Erdrich’s writing, “The Night Watchman” was a top 10 book for me from 2021. It won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

I went into this book blind, guided only by the blurb, I should know better. I was expecting a “wickedly funny ghost story” but what I read was far from funny.

I do like books about bookstores as I have worked in independent bookstores for many, many years. I enjoyed the parts of the book that took place during the “haunting” and how it was dealt with. Flora, one of their most persistent and at times annoying customers, dies on All Souls Day but her ghost refuses to leave the store. It is enough to unsettle Tookie and she tries all manner of ways to deal with it.

The main character, Tookie, is an Ojibwe woman. She is a hard character to understand at times. We see her progress from a convicted felon to a happily married woman. Her story is interesting but I didn’t find her relatable. She is quick to judge and slow to learn patience and acceptance.

I appreciated all of the introductions to Native American traditions and culture. I particularly liked Tookie’s husband, an ex-policeman, who is a good counter-balance to Tookie’s character.

What I did not enjoy and was not prepared for was the large portion of the book that made me viscerally revisit the pandemic and in particular the George Floyd protests. A large part of this book takes place during this time but it isn’t just in the background of the story, the characters are immersed in what is going on. I can’t say more without giving away the plot.

I felt myself being propelled back to that horrible time and made to revisit everything; the virus, the protests, the riots, the destruction. I wasn’t ready for this. There is no way that I will forget 2020 and I wasn’t ready for a detailed revisit.

Many subjects are covered in this book and I think every reader will have a different personal experience with this novel. For me it was too much, too soon!!

I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss.

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was like the beginning of every show where the streets empty and something terrifying emerges from mist or fire.

---------------------------------------

I passed streams of people with signs, packs, water bottles. I passed squad cars and squadrons. I passed burnt-out stores with walls like broken teeth. I passed a woman with a shopping cart full of children. Down another street, a giant tank was rumbling forward. I turned to get out of the way. Pockets of peace then smoking ruins, then tanks and full-out soldiers in battle gear. I got a cold, sick feeling, and I knew there would be deaths down the road.

Bless me, Father, for I have read. It has been three weeks since I began reading. I am only sorry that I came to the end and could read no more. But I promise to avoid the occasion of reading… this book again, well for a while, anyway.


Louise Erdrich – Image from MPR news – by Dawn Villella | AP Photo file

There is magic to be had in the Catholic sacrament of confession. Confess your sins to an invisible presence across a visually impenetrable screen, let the priest know you are truly sorry, promise to do the penance you are assigned (and actually do it. Depending on the severity of one’s sins, this sentence is usually of the parking-ticket-fine level, typically saying a number of Hail Marys and Our Fathers.) and, after a few traditional, if not necessarily magical words, your sins are erased, at least in the eyes of an even more invisible, all-powerful deity. Sins, forgiveness (or not) and redemption all figure large in Louise Erdrich’s seventeenth, and latest novel, The Sentence. The sentences are a bit more significant than the penances doled out in confession.

We meet Tookie, an immature thirty-something, early on. A friend manipulates her into stealing her dead-boyfriend’s body, and bringing it back to her. This bit of Keystone Kops body-snatching has the ill-fortune of involving the crossing of state lines…and the corpus delecti had some extra baggage. Her so-called friend throws her under the bus and Tookie is sentenced to 60 years, by a judge who would be right at home in the Kyle Rittenhouse case. A teacher of hers sends her a dictionary when she is in prison, and Tookie spends her time in lockup reading as much as she can. When she gets out, well short of the max sentence, she goes to every bookstore in Minneapolis with her resume and, finding the one where the dictionary-teacher is working, is taken on. This is not just any old bookstore, but a barely-bothered-to-try-disguising-it simulacrum of Louie Erdrich’s Minneapolis shop, Birchbark Books. With her love of reading, Tookie fits right in, becoming a professional bookseller, and thrives.


Birchbark books storefront – image from the BB site

Louise Erdrich has made a career writing about the contemporary world in light of the history of indigenous people, how the past continues to impact the present. One might even say to haunt it. The hauntings in The Sentence continue that focus, but add a more immediate presence.

There is just one problem at Tookie’s job. In 2019, four years after she starts, a frequent-flyer of a customer, both engaging (Tookie’s favorite, even) and very annoying, Flora, has passed on, but does not seem to accept this. She sustains enough mobile ectoplasm to make her presence known as she haunts the bookshop. The central mystery of the story is why. Like many who shop at this Indigenous-oriented emporium, Flora seemed a wannabe Indian. Claims some native blood, and did a fair bit to walk the walk. But she never seemed quite the genuine article to folks at the store. For reasons unknown, Flora’s ghost seems to have fixated on Tookie, bugging her more than other store employees, making noises, knocking books off shelves, and worse.

I had always wanted to write a ghost story. There’s this anomaly, “I don’t really believe in ghosts,” but I knew people who had inexplicable experiences and would not admit—as I would not—to believing in ghosts. I sometimes would take a poll when I was doing a reading and I would ask everyone in the audience if they believed in ghosts. Very few hands would come up. And then I would ask, “Have you had an experience or know someone who has had an experience with a ghost?” and almost every hand would go up. We do have some residual sense of the energy of people who are no longer living. They are living in some way. - from the PW interview

A handcrafted canoe hangs from Birchbark’s ceiling - Credit...Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times

It becomes a challenge, figuring out how to cope with this unwanted visitor. Why was she there, in the bookstore in particular, and what would it take to get her to leave? Flora had been found with an open book, a very old journal, The Sentence: An Indian Captivity 1862-1883. The book seems to be implicated in Flora’s passing. Tookie tries to figure out if the book had a role to play in Flora’s death. There might be a perilous sentence in the book.

But Flora is not the only unwelcome intruder. Erdrich gives us a look at what life in Minneapolis, and her bookstore, was like (and may be again) paralleling Flora’s growing intrusiveness with the COVID rampup in 2019 and lockdown of 2020. Figuring out how to cope with COVID, both personally and professionally, adds a major layer of challenge. A very present, you-are-there, account of empty streets, closed shops and short supplies, adds to the haunted feel of the entire city during the lockdown. (“This is the first book I have ever written in real time.“)

Sometimes late at night the hospital emitted thin streams of mist from the cracks along its windows and between the bricks. They took the shapes of spirits freed from bodies. The hospital emitted ghosts. The world was filling with ghosts. We were a haunted country in a haunted world.

And then there was George Floyd. Floyd was hardly the first (even in recent history), minority person murdered by police, but what set his example above so many others was the precise documentation of his killing. Also, not alone in current near-history, but the straw that broke the camel’s back, in a way. The outrage that has followed has been driven not just by the phone-videos that now have become commonplace, but by the long history of the same events that lacked such undeniable evidence. The annihilation of native people by Westerners is of a cloth, if at a much greater and intentionally genocidal level. It is amazing there is room enough left for living people with all the ghosts that must be wandering about.


The confessional - image from MapQuest – This part of the store figures in the tale

Tookie is our focus throughout, with occasional side-trips to other POVs. Her journey from convict to bookseller, from criminally-minded to good egg, from single to paired up. Hers is a later-in-life-than-usual coming of age. You will like her. She starts out with edge, though, which you may or may not care for.

I am an ugly woman. Not the kind of ugly that guys write or make movies about, where suddenly I have a blast of instructional beauty. I am not about teachable moments. Nor am I beautiful on the inside. I enjoy lying, for instance, and am good at selling people useless things for prices they cannot afford. Of course, now that I am rehabilitated, I only sell words. Collections of words between cardboard covers. Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters.

In case you are wondering what that final line means, even Erdich is not sure. Tookie may not have been the most glorious flower in the bouquet, but she still has considerable appeal. In addition to being smart and creative, being willing to learn, to grow and to repent her sins are among her finer qualities.

The cast of supporting characters is wonderful, per usual. Pollux is Tookie’s other half, well, maybe more than a half, as he totes along with him an adolescent niece in need of parents. He is a bona fide good man, although he has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to believing in ghosts. One of the truly lovely elements of the book is how Tookie and Pollux express their love for each other through food. His niece, Hetta, is, well, an adolescent, so the emotional interactions can be…um…lively. The shop crew are a fun lot, ranging in age and interests, and we get a look at some of the sorts of customers who patronize a shop that specializes in indigenous-related material. One other supporting cast member is the bookstore’s owner, a famous writer, referred to only as “Louise.” Erdrich has a bit of fun with this, giving herself some wonderful, LOL lines, and letting us in on some of her life under a bookshop-owner’s hat.


image from KARE 11 - Credit: Heidi Wigdahl

One tidbit I found interesting from my wanderings through things Erdrich is that she writes to a title, that is, the title is the first element of her books, and the rest is built around that. She first came up with the title for this one in 2014.

I gathered extraordinary sentences. healing sentences, sentences that were so beautiful that they brought people solace and comfort, also sentences for incarcerated people. - from the Book Launch

At some point the weight of her accumulated material justified beginning to flesh it out. This happened in 2019. I did not find any intel on just how many titles she carries about with her at a given moment, or what was the longest gap between title idea and deciding to write the book.

Bottom line is that when you see the name Louise Erdrich on a book, you can count on it being an excellent read. You can count on there being compelling contemporary stories, engaging characters, and a connection with the history of indigenous people. You can count on there being some magical realism. In this one, there is a powerful motif of sins in need of forgiveness. Mistakes need correcting, penance needs to be done, and redemption is a worthy, if not always an attainable goal. The Sentence asks how we can come to grips with the ghosts of the past, and cope with the sins of the present while mass-producing the specters of the future.


Protesters gathered at Chicago Ave. and East 38 th Street in South Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd - image and text from Minneapolis Star Tribune

At the end of the sacrament of Confession, the priest says, “I absolve thee from thy sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” If only forgiveness were all that was needed. Read two literary novels, one thriller, a memoir and a non-fiction, and sin no more.

Many books and movies had in their plots some echoes of my secret experiences with Flora. Places haunted by unquiet Indians were standard. Hotels were disturbed by Indians whose bones lay underneath the basements and floors—a neat psychic excavation of American unease with its brutal history. Plenty of what was happening to me happened in fiction. Unquiet Indians. What about unquiet settlers? Unquiet wannabes?...Maybe the bookstore was located on some piece of earth crossed by mystical lines.

Review first posted – November 19, 2021

Publication date – November 9, 2021



This review has been cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi!

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s personal and FB pages. Erdrich's personal site redirects to the site Birchbark Books. She owns the store. There really is a confessional there. According to the store’s FAQ page, it was renamed a “forgiveness booth” after it was rescued from becoming a bar fixture.

A GHOST LIVES IN HER CREAKY OLD HOUSE

This is Erdrich’s seventeenth novel, among many other works. She won the National Book Award for The Round House, the National Book Critics Circle Award for LaRose and Love Medicine, and the Pulitzer Prize for The Night Watchman, among many other recognitions. Her familiarity with cultural mixing is personal, her mother being an Ojibwe tribal leader and her father being a German-American. Familiarity with both native spirituality and western religion also stems from her upbringing. She was raised Catholic.

Interviews
----- Louise Erdrich: The Sentence Book Launch Conversation by Anthony Ceballos
-----PBS - Louise Erdrich’s ‘The Sentence’ explores racial tensions in a divided Minneapolis
-----Publisher’s Weekly - A Ghost Persists: PW Talks with Louise Erdrich by Marian Perales

Other Louise Erdrich novels I have reviewed
-----2020 - The Night Watchman
-----2017 - Future Home of the Living God
-----2016 - LaRose
-----2010 - Shadow Tag
-----2012 - The Round House
-----2008 - The Plague of Doves
-----2005 - The Painted Drum

Songs/Music
-----Johnny Cash - Ain’t No Grave - Flora plays this while haunting Tookie

Items of Interest
-----NY Times - Where to Find Native American Culture and a Good Read By J. D. Biersdorfer
-----Twin Cities Daily Planet - After 17 years Birchbark Books continues to center Native stories, space amid society of erasure By Camille Erickson | April 27, 2017
-----The Catholic Crusade - the traditional Act of Contrition

[Candi · Rating 3 out of 5]

To my dear Goodreads friends that adored this book, I apologize for having to sit out this particular dance. It’s not that I loathed it; I just didn’t feel particularly moved by it. I didn’t want to get out of my chair and let loose. The rhythm threw me off quite often, and the character of the tune was just too angular for my taste. I prefer something a bit more lyrical. The two biggest problems that created such dissonance for me: a ghost and a pandemic.

“Flora died on the second of November, All Souls’ Day, when the fabric between the worlds is thin as tissue and easily torn. Since then, she has been here every morning.”

A ghost haunting a bookstore is rather alluring to this reader, in theory. But in practice, I just couldn’t buy it. Not that I’m opposed to ghost stories (see my review of Rebecca if you don’t believe me!). I like my ghosts a bit more subtle, and Flora was too over the top for me - as was the main character, Tookie. After finishing the book, I have no real good picture of this Ojibwe woman who had been imprisoned, released early, and who then sought refuge as an employee of a bookstore. Perhaps my imagination is failing me these days, but I had a better impression of some of her coworkers than I did of Tookie herself. But, I have to admit that I was absolutely on board with the interactions between the store employees as well as Tookie’s passion for books and reading. Who wouldn’t be?!

“Alone, I had to get out of my surroundings the way I used to in prison. There, I had learned to read with a force that resembled insanity. Once free, I found that I could not read just any book. It had gotten so I could see through books—the little ruses, the hooks, the setup in the beginning, the looming weight of a tragic ending, the way at the last page the author could whisk out the carpet of sorrow and restore a favorite character. I needed the writing to have a certain mineral density. It had to feel naturally meant, but not cynically contrived. I grew to dislike manipulations.”

This story takes place in contemporary Minneapolis. And yes, the pandemic did in fact come to town, just as it paid a visit to every other corner of the globe. This is where the real trouble began for me personally. I’ve worked in the public sector throughout. I have been fortunate to have been working not just with people but with books, too. The books were a lot easier to get along with during the pandemic. The people… well, I’m sure you can guess that this was a mixed bag. I simply was not ready to read about it yet. It’s just too fresh in my mind. In three weeks, a vote will be made regarding a significant expansion to our library. Some of the ugly heads are rearing themselves once again in protest. This time the issue is taxes, but the rude behavior is not all that different to that seen during the previous two years. What I’m trying to say in too many words is that the timing was simply cursed on my part.

“The things people did to one another and to themselves wore him down.”

I’m sure it’s obvious that this is a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”. Please read some other reviews. Louise Erdrich has an important story to tell, and many people will take away a whole lot more than I did. The writing is always competent. I like her stories best when I learn something about indigenous identity and history as well as the natural world. Needless to say, with the novel being set in the author’s own real-life bookstore, Birchbark Books, I’m inclined to pay a visit next time I find myself in the Midwest.

“As it turned out, books were important, like food, fuel, heat, garbage collection, snow shoveling, and booze.”

[Margaret M - (having a challenging time and on GR as much as I can) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘I decided to live for love again and take the chance of another lifetime’..... and this my friends was my favourite message from this very unique and enchanting book where sentence after sentence, word after word I became engrossed in Tookie’s story.

A rather unusual story that is multi-layered, haunting, and perceptive and combines a lighthearted ghost story with a woman rebuilding her life after being freed from prison. Then add a heavy dose of Covid reality and a shifting political world, and you have the makings of an excellent story that embraces literature, the meaning of words, and the healing power of books.

Haunting, passionate, relevant, and incredibly evocative.

The Plot

Tookie is released from prison after years of incarceration for naively recovering the corpse of her friend’s husband. Except the body carried something valuable to some but illegal – which was cocaine. Not able to provide any meaningful defence Tookie is imprisoned where she ignites her passion for books and literature. After many unsuccessful appeals, Tookie is finally freed, marries Pollux, and sets up a bookshop. However, the bookshop is haunted by the ghostly presence of one of its former customers, Flora who is looking for help and understanding which is to be found in a ‘sentence’.

A somewhat tragicomic story with lots of light-hearted and enjoyable moments whilst sobering with the backdrop of the global pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and the Trump effect. On the fictional side Tookie needs to figure out what keeps Flora’s spirit from resting. And the answer is to be found in one of the many books that adds so much texture to this story.

Review and Comments

A sometimes very haunting and atmospheric story, a great premise and lots of pertinent themes. However, the greatest enjoyment from this story came from the literary references and the many extracts and quotes from some very worthy books, which demonstrates the authors passion for not just writing but also reading. Louise Erdich also treats us to a list of Tookie’s favourite books; or should I say the author’s, at the end of the book which has been added to my TBR.

The plot threads are numerous and so varied they shouldn’t work together but somehow they do, which makes this such an interesting and absorbing book. Except for one element.
My only criticism was the connection of the first part of the story with the rest of the book. I began by reading a crime / thriller story or so I thought, and so my mind was on that path and in detective mode. As Stephen Rea said in ‘Dickensian, I was in the mood to do some ‘detecting’. Then we decide, not only are we going on a different journey but different means of transport because I had to hit my internal ‘reset’ button and embrace a story where the original crime and period of incarceration disappeared altogether. Even the writing style changed, and the book was heavily focused on culture, literature and finding that inner peace for the central female characters, from the present and the 'other world'.

Some ‘sentences’ worth noting:

“What happens when you let an unsatisfactory present go on long enough? It becomes your entire history”

“When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape”.

A love letter to books, a salute to the many authors and books listed, a nod to the many themes it embraces, and applause for the cultural and political elements that were deftly woven into the story. Take a bow Louise for writing this intriguing, passionate, and relevant story. You held me with every ‘sentence’.

[Paromjit · Rating 5 out of 5]

The extraordinary writer, Louise Erdrich, writes a beautifully crafted and haunting character driven novel that captivates, a blend of fact, fiction and magical realism, that resonates deeply with our contemporary world, the fear, pain and trauma of the pandemic, the brutal murder of George Floyd, the BLM protests, and the ghosts and horror of American history when it comes to Native Americans. It pays homage to books, littered as it is with numerous references to books, and to readers and independent bookstores, Erdrich herself owns one, Birchbark Books in Minnesota, indeed she makes an appearance in the novel. The flawed Tookie is Ojibwe, and the story begins with a mad caper which has Tookie taking the body of Budgie from Mara across state lines for Danae, a friend, only to find herself betrayed and reluctantly arrested by a tribal cop, Pollux.

Tookie ends up in prison after receiving an impossible sentence of 60 years, where she receives a dictionary from a teacher, as she becoming an avid reader of the books in prison. On her release, facing a challenging future given her ex-con background, she ends up employed at a bookstore, now selling words, turning her life around and moving on from the character she used to be. She has a complicated marriage to Pollux, a compassionate man embedded in Native American life and traditions, he has a niece, Hetta. However, troubles continue to follow her, when a regular customer, Flora dies, she returns to the bookstore as a unwanted ghost, an irritating haunting presence that refuses to leave, with Flora's major focus and concentration on Tookie. Tookie's disturbing and unsettling past comes back to haunt her as she tries to work out what it will take to get the annoying Flora to leave.

This is a powerful and enthralling delight of a story, with a wide range of vibrant and colourful characters, delving into American history, and its present in the form of contemporary realities, such as the BLM, the grief and isolation of the pandemic, raising the question of how we might move on into the future. It speaks of race, love, human sins, redemption, of hope, forgiveness, the power of books, of being a reader, and the importance of bookstores. This is a wonderfully engaging and profound read, full of soul and spirit, humorous, heartbreaking, and so riveting that it left me feeling that I wanted to read it again soon. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sentence , a word of multiple meanings - the sentence that the main character, an ex con named Tookie serves in jail, the sentences in this book and the so many other books mentioned here, (thankfully Erdrich gave us a list at the end), the sentences the characters sometimes impose on themselves .

The story is haunting, literally because the ghost who comes to the book store where Tookie works, haunting because of things in the past of the characters, the history of indigenous people, haunting in the present of the country with Covid, the killing of George Floyd, with pervasive racism. It’s also a beautiful tribute to books and people who love reading, independent bookstores (not just any bookstore, but Louise Erdrich’s bookstore) https://birchbark books.com/pages/our-story

I thought it was a good way to mark National Native American Heritage Month by reading a book by Louise Erdrich . (https://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/ ) Actually any time is a good time to read a Louise Erdrich book.

I received a copy of this book from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

“From the time of birth to the time of death, every word you utter is part of one long sentence”
—Sun Yung Shin, ‘Unbearable Splendor’

Louise Erdrich’s lyrical tribute to life-love-marriage-friendship-Indigenous identity- history-death-and literature is a very precious gift….
with an excellent list of books included…..
….It’s magical - with colorful characters - creative storytelling - delicious dialogue….
it’s timely, relevant, hopeful and spiritual.

On top of being a creative clever ghost-style-examination of 2019 and 2020, it’s also an impressive
book lovers reference.
My desired books to-read grew substantially longer.
I plan to buy the hard copy today ….
making it ‘hands-easier’ to open and dive into that phenomenal favorite book list recommended by Tookie.

A few excerpts:
“I am an ugly woman. Not the kind of ugly the guys write or make movies about, where suddenly I have a blast of blinding instructional beauty. I am not about teachable moments. Nor am I beautiful on the inside. I enjoy lying, for instance, and I am good at selling people useless things for prices they can’t afford. Of course, now that I am rehabilitated, I only sell words. Collection of words between cardboard covers”.
“Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters”.

“But Tookie! Listen. Clearly. Listen! Clearly!”
“I focused elsewhere. The stroking was so nice. Finally she coaxed my gaze to her and spoke as though I was the unreasonable child”.
“So, Tookie, honey? Mara and Budgie relapsed together and he died. If you wear a nice dress? She’ll let you put him in the back of your truck”.

“What exactly do you mean, giving back to nature?”
“We don’t use chemicals, I said. It’s all biodegradable”.
“What then?”
“A return to the earth. As our psycho-spirituality intended.
Thus our name: Earth to Earth. And trees. We surround the loved one with trees. So that a grove springs up. Our motto: Graves to Groves. You can go there and meditate”.
“Where’s this place?”
“In the fullness of time, I will take you there. For the present, I need to assist Budgie in beginning his journey. Can you show me where he reposed?”
“I cringed at the word ‘repose’—over-the-top smarm? But Mara was already showing me the way”.

Ha….
I looked up different uses for the word *repose*—
I concluded I *repose* every time I step into my warm hot pool.

Tookie, Pollux, Hetta, Flora, Asema…. and others who rounded out the cast, made this book delightful!!!

Soulful, insightful,
funny, refreshingly revealing, illuminating!!!

This novel is marvelous….really extraordinary. Adding to my half dozen favorite books all year…. and another Erdrich novel-favorite!

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not many authors could include all the things Erdrich does in this novel and make it work. A haunting, a bookstore, Covid, motherhood, George Floyd's death and the ensueing protests, marriage, quarantine, and more. Set in Minnesota she also keeps to her Objibwe roots with native lore and injustices. Sounds like a word salad, but it does come to a cohesive whole. Somehow, but that is the brilliance and wonder of Erdrich. Serious subjects but humor as well. Plus, talk of books,books, books. One of my top five books of this year.

Loved that she included a list of books, of which I have read little. May use that list for a personal challenge in the soon to be New Year.

[Elli (Kindig Blog) · Rating 1 out of 5]

‘There are books that knock you sideways in around 200 pages. Between the covers there exists a complete world. The story is unforgettably peopled and nothing is extraneous. Reading one of these books only takes an hour or two but leaves a lifetime imprint’.

I tried with The Sentence, I really did, but I got to this paragraph at 50% into the book and it just reiterated the fact that it was doing none of those things for me. I’m sad to say it was my first DNF of 2022.

This book was marketed as a ghost story set in a bookshop, which for a book-blogger and bibliophile sounds like a brilliant premise. However, the ghost story isn’t atmospheric or interesting and also takes a side-line to politics and the covid pandemic which seemed a bit of a shame. At 50% I still had no idea where the book was going and realised that I didn’t really care either way – I wasn’t gripped or hooked with the plot to want to find out more.

One of my main issues was the main character, Tookie. Although as a native American woman Tookie should have been a layered and interesting character, I just found that she felt very flat and one dimensional. Events just seemed to happen to her – whether that was going to prison, being released, getting married, starting a job in the bookshop, finding out she had a grandchild or discovering a ghost haunting her workplace. She seemed to keep the reader at arms length and didn’t let us properly into her head. I didn’t feel that I related to her or empathised with her in any way.

The book felt very jumbled as well that didn’t help. Lots of drawn-out conversations that didn’t seem to move the plot forward and then suddenly a major event would be introduced and skimmed over in a sentence which led to me saying ‘wait, what?’ and having to re-read. After reading a spoiler for the end of the book, I don’t think I particularly missed much - the reader asking a question about it also seemed to have missed an important plot point which meant the conclusion made little sense so I think I may have made the right decision in putting it down.

Overall, The Sentence didn’t work for me – with an unrelatable main character and jumbled writing style. Thank you to NetGalley & Little Brown Books UK – Corsaire for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for a (very) honest review.

For more of my reviews check out www.kindig.co.uk

[Canadian Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erdrich is a master of prose. Her characters are both complex and real. Her stories layered with rich native culture.

Tookie is a quirky if not whacky but endearing character. After serving her sentence for a crime she didn’t think was a crime, but just helping out a friend and then framed for it, she goes to work in a bookstore. There is the magnetic pull, my fellow GR peeps.

The other characters, well, I would characterize them as misfits. But memorable ones who love the written word. Even a ghost, who lingers in the bookstore unsettling Tookie daily. A Foretelling of the foreboding: Covid is about to arrive. The death of George Floyd.

The overall mystique of the novel is woven with dark humour, sadness; grief; but an abundance of love, hope and healing.

The Sentence is a brilliant title. Encapsulating the jail time Tookie did and the beautiful sentences from various novels.
The prologue serves as reference for Tookie’s favourite reads.

This was a riveting one.
4.5⭐️

[David]

DNF. I can’t. The biggest crime here is letting the author read the audio book.

[Sujoya - theoverbookedbibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Previously incarcerated for a decade for a crime she was set up to take the fall for, Tookie spent most of her prison time reading and upon release looking for employment in a bookstore. In the present day , she works for an independent bookstore in Minneapolis owned by “Louise” and is married to Pollux , a former tribal police officer and a caring and generous man who is also an authority in Native American traditions and rituals . After a regular (and slightly annoying) patron dies while reading a manuscript covertly taken from the bookstore , Tookie starts feeling a supernatural presence in the bookstore and believes that it is Flora’s ghost haunting the store. Initially she is the only one who feels the presence and there are some entertaining and funny moments but when an unpleasant encounter with Flora’s ghost leaves her unconscious, Tookie realizes that she needs to get to the bottom of why Flora refuses to leave. With the help of her colleagues she starts to explore the origins and content of the mysterious manuscript which Tookie and her friends believe played a part in Flora's death and find a way to rid the store of Flora’s ghost once and for all - all this while working in the midst of a pandemic and worried for her family’s health and safety .While she delves into the details of Flora’s life ,Tookie gains perspective on her own past , life choices and the importance of the people and relationships in her present life.

“Ghosts bring elegies and epitaphs, but also signs and wonders. What comes next?”

Set in the most part in 2020 Minneapolis, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich covers a lot of ground in terms of current events such as the COVID pandemic, George Floyd’s brutal murder and the subsequent protests . With an interesting cast of characters , glimpses into Native American history and traditions and elements of magical realism in a real time setting, The Sentence is a masterfully crafted story that elicits both smiles and tears. I enjoy stories set in libraries or bookstores and The Sentence is no exception. The role of books and bookstores in times when people are forced to live in isolation from one another due to circumstances beyond one’s control is beautifully depicted throughout the story. Thanks to the author for including Tookie’s reading list at the end of the novel.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflections and shattered pieces.....

Louise Erdrich, one of my all-time favorite authors, presents a novel tightly packed with a solemn reverence for all things in the scope of being particular to the events from 2020 and even delving into the history of the Ojibwe in Minnesota. It is raw, it is revealing, and it hits places where we all fear to tread.

Erdrich anchors her story through the character of Tookie. Tookie proudly wears her Ojibwe identity. But her complicated past will continue to throw shadows upon her. She was arrested for a crime in which she lost all good sense. Prison taught her many skills and honed in her ability to see well beyond the obvious. Her diligence got her a job in a small business bookstore and the lasting imprint of her personality roped in a husband, Pollux, a former police officer. Their relationship was destined in the stars.

Tookie encounters all kinds of individuals within the bookstore setting. Erdrich, a bookstore owner herself, lines the story with authors and titles that make any dedicated reader salivate. One of the most unsettling customers for Tookie was Flora who elbowed her way into everyone's business uninvited. Word reaches Tookie that Flora has died. And here's where an unexpected presence follows Tookie within the walls of the store. She knows that sometimes the dead refuse to be dead. And that fits Flora to a tee. Throughout the story, we will experience the unexplainable presence of Flora and her persistence. Tookie's reaction is, at times, hilarious and other times fearful.

The Sentence is definitely character driven. We will meet Pollux' complicated daughter as well as Tookie's fellow workers at the store. And with every opportunity around every corner, Erdrich will insert matters for the mind. As other readers of this novel will tell you, early 2020 with the pandemic in full force and the riots after the murder of George Floyd will leave a bitter ache. Walking through the streets of these events, especially with the pandemic still in our midst, is going to be heavy and heartbreaking. But it's all part of Tookie's existence at the time as well.

"I worked hard, kept things tidy, curtailed my inner noise, stayed steady. And still, trouble found where I lived and tracked me down." And that speaks to us all in these times. But don't let trouble unpack its bags and stay. Better times come when better is released into the Universe.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀

3 ½ stars

“I was Tookie, always too much Tookie. For better or worse, that's a fact.”

I feel quite conflicted over The Sentence. Although I loved the first half of this novel I found the latter to be boring and somewhat disjointed. While I’m sure many will be able to love everything about this book I wish it hadn’t quite tried to juggle so many different themes and genres.

The Sentence follows Tookie, an ex-con who now works as a bookseller at an Indigenous bookstore in Minneapolis after falling in love with books and words during her incarceration. Tookie’s winning voice is the book’s biggest strength. Her humor, remarks, and inner-monologue were a delight to read. It is rare to come across a narrator that is so genuinely funny. Her voice drew me in from the very opening pages which give us a recap of the events that led to her imprisonment. She could be down to earth, in a gritty sort of way, but she was also a compassionate and forgiving person. While her assessment of others (especially her customers) often poked fun at them (their appearance/reading habits/mannerism), she never struck me as a judgemental person. She was the kind of character that I wish existed so I could meet in real life. Not only did I find Tookie’s unruliness amusing but her love for literature certainly won me over. Throughout the course of The Sentence, Tookie talks about books, a lot of them, many of which I’ve read. Her analysis of these books, as well as their authors, certainly kept me engaged. It just so happens that in addition to the bookstore angle the narrative includes quite a few other storylines. A regular customer of the bookstore Tookie works at die. It just so happens that Fiona, the customer in question, was an annoying white woman who tried to legitimise her ‘interest’ in Native American cultures by claiming to have indigenous heritage. While Tookie did find her irksome, she's not happy about her passing, especially when Flora’s ghost starts haunting her bookstore. While Tookie’s partner, a former tribal police officer, is somewhat sceptical about these visitations, Tookie knows that Flora ghost is haunting her.

Now, I found this premise compelling enough, and I even appreciate the narrative’s slow-pace as I found Tookie’s voice to be engaging enough. Sadly, the story takes a swerve halfway through when the covid pandemic steals much of the ‘show’. Personally, it's too soon for me to be reading about the pandemic, given that it's still ongoing. It just aggravated my anxiety and unease at the current situation. I also had very little interest in reading about these relatively ‘fresh’ events in such detail. The narrative then also touches upon BLM in a not quite superficial way but not the tone of the story undergoes a jarring change. The ghost aspect of the story fades into the background. The latter half of the novel lacked direction and seemed too intent on being relevant and topical than on continuing the story it had so far worked to establish. There was just too much going on and because of this secondary plotlines and characters suffered because of it. They lacked depth, nuance, and page-time. This is a pity as I was really invested in Tookie and her story. There were certain portions of the book later on that would have been more suited to an essay or a work of nonfiction. I also found the inclusion of ‘Louise’ self-insert cringey. I’m not a fan of the whole author inserting themselves in a story following their fictional character thing. I mean, why? Because Tookie works at a bookstore? Eeh...it just rubbed me the wrong way. Towards the end we also get random povs following other characters and I found them unnecessary.

Despite my somewhat conflicting feelings over this novel, I would still recommend it. Just because I found the more topical sections to detract from the whole ghost-story setup, it may very well appeal to other readers. Tookie, as I said already, is a fantastic character and certainly worth getting to ‘know’. The dialogues rang true to life, the setting was well-established, and the dynamic between Tookie and the other characters (be it her partner, his daughter, or her colleagues & customers) was entertaining. Maybe if I were to read this when this pandemic is but a distant memory (ah!) I won't be as critical of its 2020 setting. I appreciated the author's discussions on literature, as well as her reflections on race, grief, fear, history, and love.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update: March 6, 2022 - Re-read (listened this time) for book club.
As Tookie says about reading - “Delight seems insubstantial; happiness feels more grounded; ecstasy is what I shoot for; satisfaction is hardest to attain."
Once again, The Sentence has utterly satisfied me!
------
I needed this book. I loved Tookie, an Ojibwe bookseller who is haunted by her past as well as a bookstore ghost. (Or at least she thinks it is a ghost.) I loved the setting which seems to be the bookstore Louise Erdrich owns in Minneapolis. I loved the crucial role literature plays in several of the character's lives. I laughed out loud and was brought to tears. This is the first book I've read that really epitomizes the trauma and craziness of 2020. I would hand it to a visitor from outer space or future grandchild and say -this is what we went through.

[TarHeelReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars! 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Louise Erdrich is an author I’ve been wanting to read for years. Over that time I’ve accumulated several of her novels, and finally, I’ve read one with The Sentence.

The first chapter of this novel is quite the hook. The main character, Tookie, helps her friend with a “job” you’d never expect, and that job lands her in prison. Tookie, whose birth name we don’t learn until the end of the book, is one of the most complex characters I’ve ever read. Her marriage to Pollux is equally complex, and oh how I loved Pollux’s character.

While the book is highly character-driven, the “backdrop,” which is really much more than a background, is just as strong. Set in contemporary Indigenous life in the Midwest with the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, there are bits of humor and touches of book love any bibliophile will appreciate.

Tookie works in a bookstore owned by none other than Louise Erdrich, and in that bookstore is a ghost. If I had to sum this book up in one word, it would be complex. Multi-layered relationships, characters, life events, daily life; the author truly takes her time peeling back and showing each of the layers.

I received a gifted copy.

Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the advance copy.

I really enjoyed the first 1/4 of this book but lost interest after that. The story centers around our main character Tookie, a Native American, ex-felon woman who is now working in a bookshop that is being haunted by a recently deceased customer. About halfway through the book, the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests happen and the ghost story gets pushed to the sidelines. I really enjoyed the first half about the ghost in the bookstore and wish it had been better incorporated into the current events plot. It felt like the author was in the middle of writing a ghost story when COVID hit and then decided to switch her focus away from the original story. I would have liked the main focus to be either one or the other, because the book feels jumbled and disjointed as it currently is.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is a triple entendre. To explain would be to spoil. And three things comprise alternately or simultaneously the foreground and background of The Sentence: the haunting of Birchbark, Louise Erdrich's real bookstore, by a fictional regular who won't leave; the murder nearby of George Floyd by then-Officer Derek Chauvin; and the encroaching virus covid-19 which, as Chauvin did to Floyd, will steal the breath from a disproportionate number of indigenous and black people in the U.S.

I've been a lover of Erdrich's work since her debut, Love Medicine, with its unforgettable first scene in which June Nanapush lays down in the snow and [redacted]. This and her prior novel are standalones but most of her fiction features recurring characters, families, across place and time. She's been a master of character. I was pleased while reading her trilogy to encounter some of the same characters from the Love Medicine series. Her books are low-key though tragic events occur. They're character-driven.

And so is The Sentence. It's a book I appreciate more having finished because what Erdrich was doing was not always clear and there were low-key scenes that seemed slow but turned out to be important. There's a lot here. I haven't even mentioned the books. So many fine books are mentioned, recommended, read, purchased, they're collected in an appendix. There's a bit of what Erdrich could probably collect into a full volume of Weird Things People Say About Indigenous Peoples in Birchbark Bookstore. And there's one particular character it was hard for me to close the book on. I know I won't be meeting them again, but they're with me. Not going anywhere because June hasn't. Well done, Louise. A strong, quiet book which takes place in the midst of unfolding, escalating drama and tragedy.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know, I have worked really hard in recent times to increase the number of positive reviews I am able to write, after long suffering from a disorder in which the stinkers get my fingers flying on the keyboard like they’re directly attached to my brain while the great five-star winners freeze right me up like the overworked closet air con unit of an 80s Tampa timeshare. (True story.)

Nonetheless - despite my budding improvements in this area, I still come up against books where I’m like:

GODDESS. I CANNOT.
I simplyhavenothingtosayoraddi’mnotworthy….

And that’s definitely how I feel about this book.

This is the second time for me that Erdrich has taken an era of nonsensical, unspeakable pain and magically turned it into a story that does not turn away from the honest confrontation and presentation of that pain, while also somehow presenting possibility and direction for love, hope, healing, and perseverance.

The first time was with Future Home of the Living God, which among other things talked about political division, patriarchy, and environmental disaster and used a futuristic approach with a touch of sci fi/cli fi dystopia to do so. This book, The Sentence, focuses just on our present dystopia alongside what we can learn from the past and, with the teeniest tinge of magical realism, deals with issues including but not limited to racism, colonialism, slavery, and exploitation, including that of indigenous people and of African American people, police and other institutional violence, and of course, Covid-19.

As I indicated when describing my problems with writing good reviews - it’s so easy to talk about how everything is completely shit. What’s hard is talking about how to go on in the face of all of the horribleness - much of which is beyond our control and irreversible - without becoming complicit.

Much of the author’s message regarding that has to do with love, friendship, community, family, and nature, as well as gratitude for whatever life, health, and freedoms remain in our grasp. The protagonist, Tookie, is aptly able to appreciate all this, having spent time in prison for a youthful love-and-drug-addled offense.

But above all, this book seems to be about the redemptive power of literature, books, and storytelling itself. Indeed, it’s one of the biggest love letters to literature I’ve ever read, as one form of story or another sustains, empowers, liberates, and unites many of the major and secondary characters in the book and helps them make sense of, frame, and reframe their (our) world.

Only a true master - I mean an absolute genius - could write such a meaningful and hopeful (and entertaining, humorous and engaging!) book in real time - and in THESE real times!

I haven’t even begun to describe this book’s power yet - still I fail! - but I do hope you will give it a try!

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I assigned this for my upcoming bookclub meeting because we are all retired booksellers from Barnes and Noble, and I thought a book about the haunting of a bookstore by a former customer would be right up our alley. It was that, and much more.

The bookstore is Birchbark Books, in Minneapolis, which is owned by Louise Erdrich and she is a minor character in the book. Our narrator is Tookie, a very funny indigenous woman with a questionable and difficult past. She has settled down, gotten married, become a clerk at the bookstore, and is the prime target of the ghost. I won't get into all that, because it's a pretty involved plot. This novel is also about the beginning of Covid and how it affected us all, which was pretty much the same worldwide. The disbelief, the fear and uncertainty about how and what and where, what to do, how to go on, where to hide. We also get a firsthand look at the murder of George Floyd, and how that affected the city of Minneapolis for weeks and months afterwards. Throw in some tribal history, bigotry against Native Americans, police brutality, a little of this and a little of that, and you get enough to think about for a long time.

Lest you think this is a political book, let me assure you it is not. The Orange Man is only mentioned 2 or 3 times, and never by name. What this really is, is a love letter to books. How they can save you, how readers lean on them for solace and comfort and information. How sharing them and making them available can bring us together. The joys of being a bookseller who can put a beloved book into a reader's hands. The title has many meanings, not the least of which is how we sentence ourselves to our own fates.

What is the most beautiful sentence in the human language? Some samples from the book include:
"You are forgiven."
"The door is open. Go."
"He's breathing on his own now."

We all get to make up our own mind on that one.

[Brandice · Rating 5 out of 5]

An independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted by the ghost of its most annoying customer, Flora. Tookie, one of the bookstore employees, tries to determine why Flora is haunting. At the same time, Tookie must deal with ghosts of her own past and face all that’s going on in MN, with the pandemic and horrific murder of George Floyd. Why is Flora still there? Will the store stay afloat during the pandemic? Can the city survive and will people actually learn something, changing for the better?

The Sentence was an excellent story, taking place from November 2019 - November 2020. When I wasn’t listening to it, I found myself thinking of it, eager to get back to find out what would happen next. If the idea of a ghost story or reading about the pandemic feels meh, give it a shot anyway — I am not drawn to ghost stories and have not been interested in books about this pandemic, however, this book was both and neither. Yes, those elements are present but not overbearing. It felt realistic but was still very enjoyable, even with its heavier topics. There was also a decent amount of humor throughout, and the bonus of the bookstore setting. I liked Tookie as the main character and Dissatisfaction was one of my favorite side characters.

The Sentence was my first Louis Erdrich book and will not be my last. The audiobook narrated by Erdrich herself was great, my second audiobook of 2022 and my second 5 star read this year.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now shortlisted for the 2022 Women’s Prize.

This is the first book I have read by Louise Erdich who I have seen described as something of a national treasure in America. She who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2021 for her previous novel “The Night Watchman” - a prize which of course like most US books prizes excludes any non-American authors (presumably for the same reason that Americans play club team sports that no one else plays so they can claim to be world champions). Now that novel was barely reviewed in the mainstream literary reviewing media in the UK - which in some ways is a puzzle but which I think may be because stories about prejudices against indigenous people do not resonate as well as books about say slavery and its aftermath.

I would also have to say that reading this novel - which I largely enjoyed - I noted firstly that (to me like so many literary American novels) the world outside the US barely exists (other interestingly than in the large number of non-American authors mentioned) and secondly that the novel seemed to me very American - almost as if I was slightly excluded from what it took for granted.

I would also say though that the book reminded me in some - not all aspects - of the most recent writings of Ali Smith: the Seasonal Quartet and particularly Companion Piece) and I have always thought that a non-UK reader cannot really fully understand Smith’s writing.

In terms of similarity to Smith’s writing I would say: in its sometimes seemingly randomly scattered multiple storylines (and side stories) which somehow converge; in its blend of the very real and immediate with the fey/timeshifting (Smith) or indigenous belief/folklore (Erdich); in the way in which it, not always entirely successfully but still admirably, feeds in an almost instantaneous lived-through experience of current political events, alongside its storyline - a tendency which gives the books an urgent immediacy albeit it will be interesting to revisit them in say 10 years and see if they have retained a legacy.

I would say though that one difference could be characterised as that while Smith plays with language, Erdich’s focus in more on literature.

The story starts with a rather odd prologue: the main character Tookie (a Native American who narrates most but not quite all of the book in the first person) tells of her arrest and imprisonment in 2005 (while in her thirties) for the rather bizarre crime of drug smuggling - bizarre because the drugs were concealed (by someone else) in the armpits of a dead body she transports for slightly obscure reasons between two girlfriends of the dead man.

This episode seems to serve a number of purposes (which I cannot help thing might have largely been achieved with a slightly less odd crime): to introduce the subject of death and its aftermath and affect both on those left behind and those who have died; to allow Tookie to encounter (and have a formative experience) with Pollux, the Tribal Policeman that arrests her; to highlight how the anti-black bias of the American Justice system is matched (it not outweighed) by its bias against indigenous peoples; to place Tookie under the book’s first (of many) Sentences - the book’s title is the only place where I felt wordplay came into effect; to allow Tookie to grow in literary confidence via a dictionary gifted to her by her old English teacher (and unofficial school guardian/mentor) and by extensive reading while under that sentence.

The majority of the book takes place over the period November 2 2019 to November 2 2020 - and to be honest for some time felt like a different book. I am aware that most Americans drive automatics so I guess it makes sense that authors struggle with gear shifts? Tookie (by now released from prison and married to Pollux) has taken a job at a Minnesota bookshop, a bookshop which is, to all intents and purposes, the real life Birchbark bookshop (complete with birchbark canoe, confessional booth and a speciality in Indigenous books and art) run by Louise Erdich - who rather cleverly I felt appears as a side character in her own book. One of the bookshop’s most notorious customers Flora - a wannabe Indigenous - has died but continues to visit the store as a ghost, her presence known largely to Tookie. Flora we find, via her daughter, died reading a book called “The Sentence: An Indian Captivity” and Tookie comes to believe that one sentence in the book

From there the book interleaves (sometimes I have to say rather awkwardly) a number of strands:

Observational humour and insight on running a bookshop

Comments on literature - the bookshop workers commonly recommending books to or discussing them with their customers

Observations on life as a native American in modern America - and in particular on interactions with non-indigenous people, including those who believe firmly they are not just empathetic to your plight but even (like Flora) somehow are part of it.

Indigenous and tribal customs, beliefs and folklore, particularly around death - I must admit that I admired the concepts of these sections a lot more than I either really understood or enjoyed them

Tookie’s relationship with Pollux and with his brother’s rebellious daughter Hetta (who regards Pollux as her Dad) - Hetta arrives with a baby and also with another rather bizarre storyline about a shameful part she took in a film.

The lived experience of the pandemic - I must admit I struggled for different reasons to identify with these sections as they really did not match my UK experience of strict and lengthy complete lockdowns. Partly this is because (and this was clearly an important moment for the author as she has herself - as character - remark on it) the bookshop manages to get its staff identified as a critical workers - but even putting this to one side characters seem largely free to move around in a way only possible in the UK if you were one of the people setting the lockdown rules and thus (it seems in your own head if not according to the law) exempt from them.

Political commentary - as the City of Minnesota is torn apart by the George Floyd murder (which happened in the town)

A combined ghost and mystery story as Tookie seeks to understand why Flora is haunting her - and eventually discovers (via it has to be said a set of connections which for me were both obscurely supernaturally and heavily coincidental) not just that but something more of her own identity (this latter involves yet another of the clunky gear shifts).

Overall this is an ambitious and very different, if far from perfect book which makes an interesting addition to the longlist.

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books are essential.

I made a commitment to read more books from diverse authors and to poke my head out from under my SF/F rock and see what else is going on in the world in contemporary writing.

I’m so glad I did because I may not have otherwise read this remarkable book from award winning writer Louise Erdritch.

Erdritch is described as having a father who “is German American and mother is half Ojibwe and half French American. She is an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe nation (also known as Chippewa). She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant Native writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance”.

This book is described as “a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors”.

Yep, all that.

First of all, I’m going to find out more about this Native American Renaissance and read more from Erdritch.

She begins with a description of a tragi-comic crime and arrest that introduces us to our protagonist – narrator, Tookie. I imagine Tookie as a big woman, a full of life troublemaker with a bad past and a self-destructive streak. Some time in prison has changed her a lot, as it will, and when she comes back, she has a new outlook but most of the same old problems.

One positive change, and one that really makes the book work so well, is that while incarcerated she learned to love books. Taking a job in a Minneapolis bookstore that specializes in Native American literature, Erdritch (who is apparently the owner of the store in a fun bit of inclusion) shows how Tookie is a dedicated and maybe a little scary bookseller.

Even scarier is when a dedicated but annoying regular customer dies and maybe come back to haunt the store. Erdritch approaches this aspect of the narrative with some gifted magical realism that also worked well considering the Indigenous themes addressed.

And then covid and George Floyd and Erdritch explores issues that are still going on and from a humanistic, Indigenous perspective that was both charming and thought provoking in many ways.

When bookstores are deemed to be essential to the economy and can stay open, the author’s depiction of this period, where the workers are struggling to keep the store open while observing pandemic cautions and finding connections to their customers was some of her best writing.

Tookie is a damaged heroine but not a victim and Erdritch’s portrayal of her as she tackles a variety of issues was a joy to read.

Highly recommended.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sentence introduced me to Louise Erdrich’s writing, admittedly late in the game. I’m of two minds, in the end, and felt like I wasn't the right audience for this title, yet I can find countless ways to praise the book. Mild spoilers below.

The daily operations of an Indigenous-owned indie bookstore in Minneapolis provide a captivating background for this story, as the lives of a handful of women play out around the onset of everyone’s favorite pandemic.

Using a modest bookshop was a neat trick to pull, by the way, if you just discovered like I did that Erdrich is also a real-life bookstore owner. Present yet remote in this tale is a literally self-effaced character, called Louise. You either roll eyes at this or you don’t. I didn’t.

Instead of her, the novel sets its gaze on an employee named Tookie, anyway. Rambunctious would be too strong a word, I guess, plus Tookie is an adult, but that woman is anything but your average salesperson.

It's not just her: a small crew of friendly weirdos sells books in there. Outside of the characters’ conversations, the antics grow ever wilder in The Sentence, which becomes a bit of a carnival and a bit of a soap opera. Louise Erdrich pushed the entertainment factor further than I expected, and Tookie “feels” a lot, carrying part of her teenage candidness into middle age, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Compelling to me was the casual use of Indigenous references in the characters’ lives, at home and at the store, combining ancient traditions and modern-day living into a current culture and political landscape made entirely relatable - in fact, recognizable. I enjoyed reading about it the same way I did when I read There There by Tommy Orange, not that long ago. The tone sets these two books apart, with Erdrich feeling playful all the while also covering existential topics, sometimes raw ones. The George Floyd murder makes it into the timeline, for instance, and the novel comes packed with family scenes and current affairs colliding every which way. A lot of what I enjoyed in this book had to do with the Indigenous perspective, regardless of the moment.

Conversely, the presence of supernatural elements didn’t always work in favor of The Sentence, in my opinion. A main story thread got out of hands – I was anxious to be rid of it – while a secondary one mollified me slightly more, but only slightly. I wouldn’t have protested if both these threads had been more abstracted; the secondary one does earn its charm mostly by way of allusion, as it is. One minute I’d be enjoying a scene where people share a meal of wild rice and emit opinions about which crop's origin is best and why, leaving me completely under the spell, and the next I’d be wondering if all the theatricals in some next scene were necessary. I liked that the story had bounce and a positive outlook, yet sometimes I wished for it to pull back.

As an unexpected perk, The Sentence comes with a neat list of real-life titles that I intend to use, with some like On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong that I’ve already read, but many that I haven’t. Again, a fun gesture from the bookstore lady, in a book that goes (sometimes shamelessly) for your heart.

[emma]

haunting a bookstore? ok goals

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started listening to the audiobook during a trip to Minneapolis then lost focus (and my library loan) for some time. Just circled back & finished it.

It was helpful, upon going back to this book, that the plot is absolutely not the most important thing about it - that is to say that there wasn't a lot plot-wise for me to remember. This is much more about the characters.

I'm not reader who loves character-driven stories, so this had no chance of being a five-star read for me, but I can freely admit that the characters are interesting and lovable and made for a very pleasant reading experience. My recent experience in Minneapolis was a cherry on top - I took a walk around Lake Nokomis one morning I was there and seeing it referenced in this book was really cool!


Click here to hear more of my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!

[Eric Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's difficult not to fall in love with a novel so firmly rooted in a love of books. Tookie, the protagonist of “The Sentence”, works in a Minneapolis bookshop. She's established a relatively stable life after extending her teenage habits into her 30s and serving time in prison for a bizarre crime. But her peaceful days are disturbed when a deceased customer named Flora starts haunting the bookshop. The specific sounds and messy habits of this woman were well known to Tookie so she's immediately able to identify whose invisible presence is browsing the bookshelves. Flora was a well-meaning and open-hearted individual who frequently spent time in the shop, but she possessed the “wannabe” characteristic of a white woman who likes to imagine she possesses Native American heritage. While raising a problematic attitude connected with liberal white society, this is also a playful and ingenious narrative twist on a familiar outdated trope of American storytelling which frequently invoked Indigenous stereotypes for the sake of comedy or horror – i.e. the common reference of “Indian burial grounds” in ghost stories. Tookie also frequently pokes fun at the pointed reasons which bring customers into the shop. Not only does this novel reference a lot of recent literature from Ferrante's “The Days of Abandonment” to “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” but it also includes idiosyncratic lists of books from 'Short Perfect Novels' to 'Tookie's Pandemic Reading'. In a way, this makes the experience of reading Erdrich's novel feel simply like a conversation with a fellow book lover.

Read my full review of The Sentence by Louise Erdrich at LonesomeReader

[Brian · Rating 1 out of 5]

“Who doesn’t have a book in them?”

What a truly bad book THE SENTENCE is. It is all over the place, and never finds a place to land, or a point. In fact the only reason I finished it was so that I could give it a bad rating, and I have a rule about rating books I don’t finish. Also, it was a book club pick, so I felt obligated. I did switch to the audio version about halfway through so I could listen to it while doing things that were more interesting than the book. Things like emptying the dishwasher, picking up twigs and dog poop from the yard, and other such sundries. Even still, I should have just dropped it. Have I mentioned it’s bad?

This book tries to tackle a bunch of “relevant” issues, covid, BLM riots, politics, etc., but Erdrich wrote this before enough time had passed to see if what she thought about these issues was actually true. This book gets so many (all) of those issues wrong because it rushed to have something to say about them before enough time had passed to see if first impressions ended up being the truth. Instead what we get is a novel that reflects the arrogance of the assumptions of the author’s world view.
The section that deals with covid is especially ridiculous. It is self-important, and for lack of a better word, stupid.

Quotes:
• “It’s like you never learned that our choices get us where we are.”
• “Delight seems insubstantial; happiness feels more grounded; ecstasy is what I shoot for; satisfaction is hardest to attain.”
• “Here I shall be held by love.”
• “A people who see themselves primarily as victims are doomed.
• “Every piece of wood needs a companion to keep it burning.

These quotes are the sum total of what I found valuable in this book. Moving on.
I have some other Erdrich on my “to read” pile. This experience might result in their being jettisoned.

[Tim Null · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some ambitious soul should make a booklist of all the novels Erdrich mentioned, then make a playlist of all the songs. (Don't look at me. I'm neither ambitious or soulful.)