Shadow Tag

by Louise Erdrich

"Erdrich is a true original. [and] one of our major writers." -Washington Post Book World

Shadow Tag, the brilliant new novel by Louise Erdrich, is a stunning tour-de-force from the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author of Love Medicine and Pulitzer-Prize-finalist The Plague of Doves. In the vein of the novels of such contemporaries as Zoe Heller and Susan Minot, Shadow Tag is an intense and heart-wrenching story of a troubled marriage and a family in disarray-and a radical departure from Erdrich's previous acclaimed work.

"Here is the most telling fact: you wish to possess me.

Here is another fact: I loved you and let you think you could."

When Irene America discovers that her husband, Gil, has been reading her diary, she begins a secret Blue Notebook, stashed securely in a safe-deposit box. There she records the truth about her life and her marriage, while turning her Red Diary-hidden where Gil will find it-into a manipulative farce. Alternating between these two records, complemented by unflinching third-person narration, Shadow Tag, is an eerily gripping read.

When the novel opens, Irene is resuming work on her doctoral thesis about George Catlin, the nineteenth-century painter whose Native American subjects often regarded his portraits with suspicious wonder. Gil, who gained notoriety as an artist through his emotionally revealing portraits of his wife-work that is adoring, sensual, and humiliating, even shocking-realizes that his fear of losing Irene may force him to create the defining work of his career.

Meanwhile, Irene and Gil fight to keep up appearances for their three children: fourteen-year-old genius Florian, who escapes his family's unraveling with joints and a stolen bottle of wine; Riel, their only daughter, an eleven-year-old feverishly planning to preserve her family, no matter what disaster strikes; and sweet kindergartener Stoney, who was born, his parents come to realize, at the beginning of the end.

As her home increasingly becomes a place of violence and secrets, and she drifts into alcoholism, Irene moves to end her marriage. But her attachment to Gil is filled with shadowy need and delicious ironies. In brilliantly controlled prose, Shadow Tag fearlessly explores the complex nature of love, the fluid boundaries of identity, and one family's struggle for survival and redemption.

Genres: Fiction, Native American, Literary Fiction, Book Club, Contemporary, Indigenous, Audiobook

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

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

[Will Byrnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shadow Tag is, we hear tell, a novelization of the demise of Erdrich’s marriage. It is an insightful, beautifully written portrait in which the character of the marriage, Dorian-Gray-like, is revealed to be somewhat wanting. Gil and Irene are the unhappy couple.

Gil has made a successful career painting his wife. We see in what we are told about his paintings the changes in their marriage.

Irene America had been the subject of his paintings in all of her incarnations—thin and virginal, a girl, then womanly, pregnant, naked, demurely posed or frankly pornographic…but now he was losing confidence and control. His paintings were hiding from him because Irene was hiding from him. He could see it in the opacity of her eyes, the insolence of her flesh, the impatient weariness of her body when she let down her guard.

We see in the images he paints the changes in how she feels. He may deny what he is seeing, but the paint does not lie. Irene sees her artistic relationship with Gil as her being food for him to consume.


Louise Erdrich - image from Britannica

Irene is an art historian and is researching a work on George Catlin, so there is plenty of interplay between her topical musings and the reality of herself as a literal work of art. She talks about how Catlin had added an element in his paintings, new to most, the shadow. Many of the locals were concerned that their souls were being taken by these paintings, as Irene wonders if she is losing a piece of herself with each of Gil’s paintings. Contemplating Catlin’s work,

Because of the shadows, his paintings had the direct force and power of the supernatural, the dream replica, the doppelganger. It was as if a sudden twin had been created right before the subject. A twin that seemed to live and breathe and follow one with its eyes and yet was motionless. The paintings were objects of veneration and of fear. Some swore uneasily that those who allowed their portraits to be painted, eyes open, would not lie peacefully after death, as some aspect of their being would live on, staring out at the world. Others, disturbed that Catlin painted buffalo and took them away with them in his portfolio, tied his actions to the increasing scarcity of the herds upon which their lives depended. So it was, the images stole their subjects and, for the rest of the world, became more real, until it seemed they were the only things left.

They are both Native American, less than 100%, but enough to count. Erdrich always brings to her tales her experience as a Native American, offering those of us who are not of that group a look into Native culture and issues. Still, a bad marriage is a bad marriage, and Erdrich offers rich detail describing what a failed union looks like, the games each partner plays, the lies each partner tells, the roles of the children in the usually silent battle, and how their familiarity binds them.

they reverted to one of their endless arguments, first about the noodles, then about kitsch. This was not fighting, but the sort of argument that could go on for years and years, where each found bits of evidence to prove their point and dropped it into the next go-round a month, two or three months, on. They were back in old territory. They argued sometimes for comfort.

If GR readers are typical of the population at large, it is likely that about half of us have known the joys of a marital demise. I know I have. Erdrich’s scenes from a marriage rang very true in many instances, and you know early on in the story that the marriage is in serious danger.

For years, he thought, he had been mourning a death without knowing exactly who had died or how it had come about.

The story alternates between third-person depiction of the relationship between Irene and Gil, and Irene’s entries into her two diaries. One she keeps for herself, the other she uses as a weapon against Gil. She knows he sneaks looks at it, and she plants lies there to torment him.

They have three children, which adds battleground material between the pair. And a description of how one of the children keeps a memory log sounds very much like something from the author’s personal history.

Erdrich fills her novels with imagery and power. One in particular was a visualization of a wall between the two that contained its own DMZ. Another was looking down into frozen lake water

I wish we’d see a fish or turtle or something more down there, said Riel. [Gil and Irene’s daughter] And it did seem almost anything might swim into view. But there was only an amber leaf, a frayed heart suspended at the edge of a vertical white crack that went down so far it disappeared.

Despite the disappointment, the anger, the cruelty, the dishonesty, these people are very, very bonded. Can they survive without each other? Erdrich offers a shocking twist at the end, but the primary benefit is in the journey through the shadows of this marriage, and the light of Erdrich’s artistic mastery.

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

The author’s FB page. Erdrich is part owner of BirchBark Books in Minneapolis. It is not quite her personal web site, but is, I guess, close enough.

A fascinating article on George Catlin in Smithsonian Magazine

Other Louise Erdrich novels I have reviewed
-----2021 - The Sentence
-----2020 - The Night Watchman
-----2017 - Future Home of the Living God
-----2016 - LaRose
-----2012 - The Round House
-----2008 - The Plague of Doves
-----2005 - The Painted Drum

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

"With each pregnancy, they touched less often, though he painted her obsessively. Gil felt the tide going out slowly, just a little every day until now he stood alone far up the dry beach." (pg 56)

"Irene threw down the pen, laughing. Huge and merciless! Besides, when did I ever go to a conference? Or meet anyone world-renowned? If he's jealous enough to fall for that, Gil deserves to suffer. She went on writing, filling up weeks of pages." (pg. 153 'The Red {fake} diary')

3.5 I liked this more than I thought. It was a short novel filled with miserable people. When I felt like I should quit I would think about it more and wondered about the couple. Gil, an artist, and Irene, a writer and her husband's muse have come to a point in their marriage where they deceive one another and wait to mentally abuse each other with words and games.

Irene has discovered Gil doesn't trust her and has read her diary. She makes a fake account and leaves it in a drawer. He says things that he read but never admits to reading it. He keeps on painting her and decides his hate/love for her makes his paintings more vivid and beautiful but she's tired of it all. It's told in Irene and Gil's perspective and the children all have a few chapters of looking into the marriage and how it affects them.

I liked the Native American segments in the book. The author is of Native descent and it shows with her knowledge incorporated in the storyline. She writes really well and I would def read another.

The ending was the extra .5 star. It was emotionally draining (negative and somber) and you hope couple's never act like these two but I believe "misery loves company."

[Deborah Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

When an author names a character “Irene America,” chances are the name has not been randomly chosen. Irene is a a woman, but she is also a symbol – for a country, a culture, a part of history. And when that character is also Native American, her symbolic impact becomes even more nuanced. And when that character’s husband is a famous artist whose paintings are all inspired by Irene’s image, then suddenly the conceptual framework intensifies and individual interpretation of Irene - of her image, of the real woman behind the image, of her artist husband, and of America itself - becomes not only the key to our understanding of the character, but of the story as a whole.

Irene America regularly writes her thoughts and life story in a hidden red diary. Upon discovering that her husband has found her diary and begun reading it in secret, rather than confront him, she decides to continue writing in her diary, but writing lies and half-truths and quizzical thoughts that will make her husband question their marital history and their life together. Additionally, she obtains a secret safety deposit box, and begins writing a blue diary to be kept and updated there, filled with her actual story, the truth of the matter as she believes it to be. Her husband, a possessive and occasionally abusive man, a brilliant artist, but desperate and insecure, becomes haunted and enraged by the deceptive passages he reads in the red diary, and Irene uses the betrayal as a sort of belated revenge against the man who has exploited her for all these years. It is a twisted scenario, particularly when viewed in the context of a dysfunctional marriage in which three children also get to witness their parents’ issues, and equally disturbing when utilized as a reflection of America and the revisionist history that has become an inherent part of both its mystique and its corruption.

The theme of revisionist history is woven into the story in several different ways. Irene is completing a doctoral thesis on George Catlin, an artist whose early paintings of Native Americans became controversial symbols of exploitation to some, valuable depictions of early life to others, and were a source of both fear and wonder for the subjects of those paintings. Irene tells stories about Catlin to her husband, and often those stories are filled with half-truths, imagining occurrences that never actually happened. We are given glimpses of Catlin's character that we need to reassess when we later discover Irene’s falsifications. We are left to decide if our feelings about the actual man have changed given the information we now have at our disposal, some of it true, some of it created. Catlin comes to stand for the history of America as a country and the way much of what we learn in history classes is myth, a history written by the victors, legends passed down through centuries that may have little or no basis in fact but become true by numerous retellings. Similarly, like visitors to a gallery, we are given small glimpses into the lives of our main characters, scenes that show both their weaknesses and strengths, their moments of light and dark, and then we must ask ourselves if the information at hand gives us a complete enough portrait to make an assessment about their true selves.

The fine line (or at times, vast chasm) between truth and mythology, art and reality, depiction and exploitation, image and distortion, are all images Erdrich plays with throughout the novel, often with startling and disturbing results. The material is ambitious, but Erdrich handles it deftly with sharp prose and surprising imagery. When Irene discusses the way Catlin’s portrait subjects were worried that their images on canvas contained trapped pieces of their souls, she begins to see her own image, captured so often on canvas by her artist husband (Gil), as another soul trapped in captivity, a distortion of the real woman, now altered to suit the motives of the painter and the interpretations of those who view her. Irene’s ancestors, like Catlin’s subjects, believed a soul could be captured through a shadow, a mirror, a reflection. Irene begins to see herself in Gil’s paintings as a double that has been released into the world, one that her husband now owns. Erdrich writes, “Gil had placed his foot on Irene’s shadow when he painted her. And though she tried to pull away, it was impossible to tug that skein of darkness from under his heel.”

There are other thought-provoking points made in the novel, particularly when we are made privy to Gil’s favorite artists (Rembrandt, Bonnard – both renowned for their portraiture) and asked to consider Rembrandt’s portrait of Lucretia (the doomed faithful wife who took her life rather than bear the shame of having been raped). Gil obsesses over this portrait of a woman who has been represented in art and literature throughout the ages. We know this obsession foreshadows something unfortunate for Irene and Gil, as well, but in essence, we are being asked ahead of time to judge the depiction and decide if the story has been told accurately or if it is a fabrication that has achieved nearly mythological status. Likewise, in descriptions of Bonnard's paintings, we are given small scenes from a life and asked if we can judge the truth from those few small moments in time. This theme resonates in the larger story as we are given a series of incidents, a spate of domestic moments, a handful of facts, and then are asked to discern, by virtue of just these details, if we can ever truly know the motives of the people involved in these scenes. Erdrich seems to want us to arrive at the conclusion that we all have shades of light and dark within us, we all carry the full spectrum of colors, and most of us have reflected all of them at one time or another. No single glimpse, no moment in time, ever tells the whole story. Every soul is open to interpretation.

I would have loved to have given this book four, or even five, stars. I have been pondering its stunning themes for days, and I am enamored of Erdrich’s writing style and her bravery in taking on such a breadth of philosophical matter. Unfortunately, the book itself isn’t fleshed out enough to take on such expansive themes. For starters, it is simply too short. Usually, I am apt to complain if a book is unnecessarily too long, but this book needed at least another two hundred pages to fulfill its early promise. By the end of Part Two, at just over two hundred pages, it was clear that Erdrich was rushing her narrative. Either the book had become too harrowing for her, its subject matter too difficult to explore any longer, or she was merely under a deadline and needed to wrap it up. Several veins of rich material needed to be further mined, and the impact of certain story lines was vastly diminished by the quick wrap-up. I almost want to call “Shadow Tag” Erdrich’s "unfinished" novel, because if only it were twice as long, it might be the best book ever written.

(Three and a half stars – and well worth reading for the conceptual framework alone.)

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You have painted me for nearly fifteen years. In that time, I have had secrets. I have let them rest like dragonflies on the surface of my body."


Stencil Painting by CutandDestroy

He notices her, but he doesn't see her. So obsessed he is with her that she becomes his muse. He paints her at each stage of her life, even her "weary softness after giving birth." To him, her portrait is "Age, time. Snow slipping off a tree limb until it crashed whitely down."

He notices something within the "opacity of her eyes" and yet this doesn't change his bad habits, his insolence, his violent behavior and narcissistic demeanor. Still, he paints the most intimate parts of her for her children to find, and he's pleased by the "goodness and sincerity in the brushstrokes" that polish her vulva, as he completes another painting.


Light Shadow Light Paint by Exa Photographie

"Twelve years before his death, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a story that contains these beautiful sentences: It isn't given to us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. They will not be cured by our most efficacious drugs or slain with our sharpest swords."

I held my breath as I read this book because a friend of mine could be Irene. I don't have children, but I can try to understand the guilt, shame and fear that propel mothers to stay in turbulent marriages. Even then, a part of me screams, think about the children, as I think of my older sister who still bears the scars of a mother's mistake. Reading this, I pondered the choices that bind us, create illusions around us, sacrifice our core beings to place us on dire paths, form coils around our fragile minds.

Trying to turn minor characters into major ones is most likely what dimmed the lantern in some corners of this book. For prose itself is untouched, meaning the delicate way in which Erdrich's signature style lets simple phrases fall to the page in quiet, yet jolting lyric. I enjoyed reading The Round House more than I did this, but I can't wait to attempt her Pulitzer Finalist, The Plague of Doves.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you keep up with me you know I love dark but this was DARK. I have spent years meaning to start reading Erdrich but never quite knowing where to start and someone suggested this one as being up my alley. They were right, it totally is, but phew I hope the rest of her writing is not this bleak.

This is one of those books that follows a collapsing, highly dysfunctional marriage. But the thing that's so frustrating about this particular bad marriage is how neither Gil nor Irene will actually end it. The most affecting scenes, for me, were their two attempts to go talk to a marriage counselor. They went in for a specific purpose, the appointment quickly devolved into squabbling, then escalated into animosity, and then ultimately laughter. And the couple would leave, hand in hand. It made my stomach turn. But this is exactly what Erdrich wants to do, to show you this constant give and take, back and forth, with neither ever able to do anything to move forward.

I am coming to this years later, but a little googling will tell you that this is a semiautobiographical novel based on Erdrich's own very troubled marriage where her husband was unable to leave her and ultimately took his own life. This isn't necessary to know, but I think it's helpful to give a potential reader an idea of just how damaged of people we're dealing with here. There are also content warnings for child abuse, domestic violence (by both spouses), sexual assault, suicide, and alcoholism, and the thing is that these acts (mostly off the page but not all) are not the most disturbing part, the most disturbing part is that they happen and then everyone just keeps on going as if it's normal.

It's some big and heavy stuff and yet Erdrich walks the line well. Showing the reality of this kind of life day to day, occasionally giving you hope but then snuffing it out within a few pages. The central device is particularly brilliant, the two diaries kept by Irene. When she finds out her husband is reading her diary, she keeps a separate one with her real thoughts while simultaneously toying with him in the one she keeps at home. Both of them manipulate each other. And much of it happens in front of their three children, who are supporting characters but clearly aware of their parents' deep disdain for each other, but who like their parents cannot imagine any other life but the one they have.

Often this style of prose doesn't work for me, broken up into small bits. But here it never feels all that broken up. There may be pauses, but it's quite linear and usually one piece follows immediately after the previous one.

It was clear reading this that Erdrich is deeply talented, weaving this story in such a readable way even while you feel such disgust and frustration. I'm looking forward to reading more of her, though hopefully with some different subject matter.

[Barb H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louise Erdrich has penned a disturbing tale of a floundering marriage. Gil, an artist and Irene, his wife, who has posed for his acclaimed paintings for many years, are in the midst of searing, injurious game playing. Irene has long suspected that Gil is reading her diaries. She writes manipulative fantasies and invented facts in one , which she knows he will see and stores her true journals in a safety deposit box. They are parents to three bright, confused children, who sometimes exist in a world of chaos and a loving, warm atmosphere at others.

Irene writes,"Falling in love is also falling into knowledge. Enduring love comes when we love most of what we learn about the other person and can tolerate the faults they cannot change." (p.29) Later, Erdich states, "Gil had a wall. Irene had a wall. Between these two walls there was a neutral, untouched area, a wilderness of all they did not know and could not imagine about the other person. Gil actually had a clear picture of this space between them. He saw it as an untouched Eden ..." (p 150)

Erdich has in these statements expertly shaped the roots of her characters' dilemma and the intractable maze which they have woven around themselves and their family. The novel was dark and difficult at times, but often humorous and warm. The characters were skillfully drawn, both physically and emotionally. The conclusion was gripping and unexpected This author has masterfully accomplished this complex novel.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Love sees sharply, Hatred sees even more sharp, but Jealousy sees the sharpest for it is love and hate at the same time"
-Arab Proverb

I have to admit, I am both terrified and enamored with the characters in this story. Though it would be so easy to simply call them repugnant and their actions ugly, detaching myself from the story and pushing their outcomes into "That could never happen to me" land, would only tempt me down the road they traveled. Brutal and twisted though they may be, there's also beauty and truth to be found in Irene and Gil's love as well. Healthy? Hell no. But, still, love. And, well, hate, too. Lets be honest, you can't have one without the other.

Making no apologies nor trying to garner any sympathy, Erdrich's novel reads like a confession; a warning to couples: be careful about the illusions you chase and the lies you tell yourself and others to sustain it. Permeated with obsession, jealousy, fear, boredom, and insecurity, you get to watch a marriage choke itself out of existence. Devoid of quotation marks and filled with countless run on sentences, it took awhile to get used to Erdrich's style, after which barely noticed. Also, though I took my time reading this book, as soon as I would open it I would get pulled right back in.

And though I hoped with each character's downfall that they would veer from their path of self-destruction, half expecting the author to grant a reprieve for all that this family had endured, the ending was inevitable. There is no redemption here, only a cautionary tale told in whispers.

[Sandie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Louise Erdich latest foray into her version of “the Indian Chronicles” takes us into the lives of Irene America, her husband Gil and their three children Riel, Florian and Stoney. The adult characters are about as unsympathetic as any you will find in literature. In her continued exploration of the Indian as victim theme, Erdrich takes us into the on-going love/hate relationship between Irene and Gil. Irene is a “budding” alcoholic who seems to be obsessed with winning the emotional war that has been raging between her and Gil for years. Gil has two obsessions. The first seems to focus on literally possessing Irene and capturing her true self on canvas (Indian belief holds that portraits are merely shadows…..and those shadows are the soul of the subject). The second is his need to break out of the strangling confinement of the niche he has been assigned as a Native American artist. His personal and professional insecurities resonate most loudly in his apparent jealousy of his children and his readiness to accept the lie put forth by Irene, that they are not really his.

Perhaps I was just not in the mood for Erdrich’s trip to the dark side of human nature. It was obvious from the outset of the story that this couples’ dangerous game playing could only produce disastrous results for their family. I guess I have temporarily reached my maximum capacity of acceptance for self-absorbed characters, so focused on themselves and their self-destructive antics that they are unable or unwilling to see the damage they are doing to those around them. Whatever the reason, I found very little to like about this book.

[Marty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that this was a great concept. A woman (Irene) discovers that her husband (Gil) is reading her diary - the red diary - so she writes things in that diary to manipulate him. At the same time, she opens up a safe deposit box at the bank where she writes in her blue diary. The plot was really compelling, and I had a hard time putting it down.

I wonder if the book wouldn't have been better if Erdich had stuck to this concept in terms of telling the story, though. The narration really only touches on the diaries - they are more a plot device - mostly using a third person point of view to tell the story.

Erdrich's characters are the best part of the book. I mean, I couldn't stand most of them, but they were complex and interesting, as was the crazy-ass relationship between Gil and Irene. The children broke my heart.

I would give this 3.5 stars if I could. It's depressing and fascinating at the same time, and it made me glad for my happy, boring marriage.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was floored that Louise Erdrich did not win the Pulitzer this year for her magnum opus, The Plague of Doves: A Novel (P.S.). That novel doubtlessly cemented her as a peerless wordsmith and unrivaled postmodern writer of satire cum tragedy. Her dazzling metaphors--pataphors, actually, place her in a pedigree by herself. She combines ripples of Philip Roth, undertones of Nabakov and the mythical, regional realism of Faulkner. Her locale is often within the Ojibwe Native populations of North Dakota, as in The Beet Queen: A Novel (P.S.) and Love Medicine (P.S.) (as well as Plague of Doves). She has mastered the multiple-narrative voice, braiding multi-generations of families into an innovative whole.

In a striking departure from her previous work, Erdrich's Shadow Tag is a psychological examination of a marriage and family on the brittle brink of decay. Instead of the focus being on ancestral histories and buried secrets, the focus is on one family--Gil and Irene and their three young children--and their private devastations. Gil is an artist who achieved substantial success painting portraits of Irene, some of them deeply disturbing. Irene has resumed her doctoral thesis on a 19th century Native American painter whose subjects have died soon after being painted. This provides a stunning metaphor and theme for the title, Shadow Tag, a game where each person tries to step on the others' shadow, while protecting their own. Native peoples believe that their shadow is their soul. To step on their shadow or to paint their portrait is to steal their soul. Irene is one-half native and Gil is one-quarter, a fact that adds a personal engagement with the lore.

Gil possesses a stealthy, dangerous charm; he is haunted by jealousy and lashes out physically at their son, Florian. Irene, a tall, arresting beauty, drinks wine like water and keeps two diaries. She leaves a false, incendiary Red Diary for Gil to find (she is meting out punishment for his invasion of her privacy) and the true Blue one hidden in a bank vault. Gil and Irene inflict mental, emotional, and physical pain on each other as they struggle individually to maintain control.

Although narrated in the third person, the unreliable voices of Gil and Irene are woven in variously--through their introspection; by Irene's diaries; and from the children's uncertainties. The shocking candor of their actions is mired in dark motivation and murky intentions. A maddening cat and mouse game ensues; the Muse is a jealous mistress and will not be ignored. As Gil agitates over his final portrait of Irene, and Irene skillfully undermines Gil, a menacing cloud is cast over the family.

Erdrich controls her narrative with razor precision, deftly restraining and then escalating the spaces between words to arouse and intensify the reading experience. The prose is starkly sensuous, lean and taut, nuanced but inflammatory. The characters connect with a singed, bitter bite and a sable, blighted love. If you require "likeable" characters that are moral exemplars, this novel is not for you. However, if you want to sink your teeth into a bald and naked exploration of a shattered marriage, etched with moral ambiguity, you will not be disappointed. Moreover, the ending will stagger you with its poetic brilliance. It is one of the most thought-provoking final pages I have experienced in eons. A mouth-watering treat for literature lovers.

[Ron Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Louise Erdrich's new novel is a tense little masterpiece of marital strife that recalls her tragic relationship with the poet Michael Dorris. Gossips will trace the story's parallels to the author's life, but for all its voyeuristic temptations, "Shadow Tag" is no roman à clef, no act of spousal revenge on her estranged husband, who committed suicide in 1997. Instead, Erdrich has done what so many writers can't or won't do in this age of self-exposure: transform her own wrenching experience into a captivating work of fiction that says far more about the universal tragedy of spoiled love than it reveals about her private life.

After the vast, swirling canvas of "The Plague of Doves," which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize last year, Erdrich has departed from her multilayered stories about an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. "Shadow Tag" stays trapped in a bitter Minnesota home where Irene and her older husband, Gil, are nursing what they know is a dead marriage. Irene wants a divorce, but Gil won't agree, and so they bicker and make up, fight and forgive, convinced -- foolishly -- that they can keep their enmity from poisoning the lives of their three children.

If you haven't lived through this sad story yourself, you know someone who has. And of course it's the plot of a library's worth of domestic novels, but Erdrich distinguishes her own version in a variety of exquisite ways. For one thing, she keeps "Shadow Tag" tightly focused, abandoning entirely the discursive style of her previous books. What would have been oppressively grim in a longer work remains arresting in this taut tale, which comes to us from three narrators as a series of finely cut moments, each just a page or two long.

As is often the case in Erdrich's novels, the way the story is told and who's telling it are crucial to its meaning. In this case, the person behind the cool omniscient narrator isn't revealed till the final chapter, but both of the other two narrators are Irene, who opens the novel by confessing, "I have two diaries now." In her real diary, stored in a safe deposit box, she records her fury and frustration with Gil, who won't agree to dissolve the marriage that's tormenting them. But in another diary, a faux one hidden at home where she knows he'll read it, she makes up affairs and sexual escapades, all carefully designed to enrage and aggrieve him. As a story of aggravated jealousy, it's as though the same person were playing Desdemona and Iago.

"Shadow Tag" fascinates us because its sympathies, like Irene's, are so unstable. The man she hates is also the man she loves, and his passionate desperation to win her back is alternately endearing and repellent, eventually threatening. It's a devastating portrayal of the circular insanity of romantic obsession. He clings to the hope that a grand act of generosity will somehow make everything fine, an expression of his "obtuse innocence" that only infuriates her more.

Their union is further complicated by Gil's work, which demonstrates once again Erdrich's extraordinary ability to explore the mingled strains of abuse and affection. As one of the country's most successful Native American painters, Gil has always relied upon Irene to pose as his subject. Their famous collaboration has "become known as an iconic marriage," a fraught phrase that comes as close as any in "Shadow Tag" to the nature of Erdrich and Dorris's celebrated literary partnership. But the marital relationship in this novel is decidedly unbalanced. While Irene is an alcoholic, working haphazardly on a graduate degree, Gil is a famous painter who over the years has depicted her "in all of her incarnations -- thin and virginal, a girl, then womanly, pregnant, naked, demurely posed or frankly pornographic. . . . She had allowed him to paint her on all fours, looking beaten once, another time snarling like a dog and bleeding, menstruating. In other paintings she was a goddess, breasts tipped with golden fire. . . . She appeared raped, dismembered, dying of smallpox in graphic medical detail."

It's a peculiar relationship, for sure, but Erdrich frames it as a classic feminist theme and a queasy reenactment of the exploitation of American Indians: Irene can't shake the realization that's she's been used by her husband, objectified by him in ways she can no longer endure. "She had to shed the weight of Gil's eyes," she thinks. "The portraits were everywhere. By remaining still, in one position or another, for her husband, she had released a double into the world. It was impossible, now, to withdraw that reflection. Gil owned it. He had stepped on her shadow." Considering how people look at her image in his expensive paintings, she tells him, "I feel like I'm being eaten alive."

But what's remarkable is Erdrich's fidelity to the unpredictable rhythms of marital discord, the way tender moments can arise even amid their hurtful battles. "There were times," she writes, "that Irene and Gil grew so exhausted with the struggle that they simply walked out of their trenches and embraced over the heads of their children."

And those children appear in spare, deeply affecting scenes as they try to preserve their known world no matter how violent or untenable it becomes. The daughter retreats into nightmares of national disaster and fantasies of saving her family with well-honed Indian skills. The littlest child, born on Sept. 11, 2001, expresses what everyone in this family knows when he hugs his mother fiercely and cries, "It's too hard to be a human." This profoundly tragic novel captures that lament in some of Erdrich's most beautiful and urgent writing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

[Bridget · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is my first Louise Erdrich book. I am aware that she is a prolific writer, and well-respected, but I just never got around to reading any of her other books.

Shadow Tag is the story of Gil and Irene America and their family, who are of Native American heritage and living in Minnesota. Gil is an established artist of the Indian experience, and his most famous paintings feature Irene as the model.

The story is told largely through diary entries, one being Irene's "real" diary, and the other being the one that she "hides," knowing that when she is out of the house, Gil reads it. He is certain that she is having an affair, and wants to find confirmation in the diary entries.

Gil and Irene have been married for years when we first meet them, and when the book opens, are engaged in a psychological tug-of-war. Gil is convinced that Irene is unfaithful, and wants to catch her so that his suspicions can be proven true. In the meantime, his paintings of her become more and more dangerous and violent in their themes.

Irene is tired of being married to Gil, and wants a divorce, which he will neither consider or even discuss with her. She spends most of the book trying to deal with her conflicted feelings about her husband, the father of her children.

The three children are also confused, conflicted, and afraid by the behavior of their parents towards each other.

In addition, there is the undercurrent of life as an Indian in modern American society, and what that means to individuals as well as to the various tribes. The topic of just how "Indian" someone is if they came from a mixed marriage comes into the story in the person of Gil, who is famous for paintings that depict that very life.

I really liked this book at the beginning. The way of telling the story was interesting, and made you want to keep reading. The characters were well-developed, even if neither of them was particularly appealing (at least to me). But I found that about three-quarters of the way through the book, I just wanted it to get moving and find out the eventual resolution. Instead, it dragged on to an ending that seemed melodramatic, and also left me feeling annoyed because it just seemed to be tacked on without reason. If you have read any of my other reviews, you know that I have an issue with the endings of a lot of books I read, so as is the case with everything else in life, you may find the ending to be just right. For me, it made the whole book seem like a waste of time.

[Dani Roulette · Rating 5 out of 5]

TW: s**cide

“They were in each other's minds," says Vincent Rocque, Dorris's housemate at Georgetown University. "This wasn't just physical and emotional, it was literary and intellectual."

He was addicted to Louise," says a friend, Ruth Coughlin; "It was an obsession" -- but her feelings toward him had diminished.

"There's no one reason, and there's 25,000 reasons," Erdrich explains. She is standing in front of her house in Minneapolis, which is in a posh neighborhood ringing one of the city's prettiest lakes. She is willing to talk about everything but the abuse allegations. Ask anyway, and her only response is a stare.”

(Sad Story by David Streitfeld, Washington Post)

I finished Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich’s novel very quickly. The subject matter can be incredibly intense however Erdrich had a way of making it very readable.

The plot revolves around a family caught in a cycle of addiction & abuse. We witness the obsession that Gil has with his wife Irene and how this & his tendency for anger & violence effects not only Irene but their children as well.

I’ve become accustomed to mingling with a plethora of characters in Erdrich novels but for Shadow Tag we stay close to the family which lends to an intense reading experience.

This novel has been presumed by many to be Erdrich’s most autobiographical, although Erdrich herself had never confirmed this (to my knowledge anyway,) and it makes sense why she wouldn’t. Erdrich refuses to speak about the more concerning aspects of her former marriage and the allegations of child abuse that ex-husband Michael Dorris was facing during the time he took his own life.

Shadow Tag was intense. It held my attention. And to be completely frank it often horrified me. I felt like I was being given a glimpse into something very secret & very painful.

If this was in any way, shape or form inspired by Erdrichs’ life experiences then I can only stand in awe of what it must have felt like to put these words to paper.

Trigger warnings for the book include physical & sexual abuse, alcoholism, substance abuse.

5/5

[Eric Klee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tag, this novel isn't it.

In SHADOW TAG, Irene discovers that her husband Gil has been reading her diary, so she begins a new hidden diary and uses her original diary as a tool to manipulate him. Having been the victim of privacy theft with regard to my diary/journal, the premise of the novel sounded promising, intriguing, and relatable. However, I was disappointed that there were very few diary entries, as this was how I expected the story to unfold. Furthermore, what few diary entries there were weren't written very believably; they were written more like a person telling a story, which isn't how a person actually writes entries in a diary.

In addition to the diaries, there's an underlying layer of existing marital discord. Gil is abusive; Irene is a drunk. Apparently, that makes them perfect for each other, because -- to borrow a line from Brokeback Mountain -- they just can't quit each other. Unfortunately, unlike Jack and Ennis, neither Gil nor Irene have any likeable traits, which meant that there wasn't a single likeable main character in the novel. Gil is an artist; Irene is his muse and model. Maybe it's the artist in them, but both Gil and Irene seemed overly dramatic and/or melodramatic in their dialogue and actions.

Finally, this novel is all about reflections and/or the ponderings of the characters; there are little scenes of actual moments of action where something occurs. While it was a quick read, what could have been told in a short story, the author chose to drag out into a novel-length book. The extraneous details didn't reveal much more and did little to move the story along, engross the reader, or let the reader learn more about the characters.

Note to author: I know you're a published, established author with a number of books published in the double digits, but I have a plea. In a society where texting, Tweeting, and Facebook are the norm for young adults, don't make them feel that it's acceptable to never learn proper English grammar. One of my biggest pet peeves in novels is the use of "creative license" grammar. That is, authors write with total disregard of proper grammatical rules. Case in point, not using quotation marks to frame words spoken by the characters. This is extremely evident in SHADOW TAG when the author combines character's dialogue with the character's actions in a single paragraph.

Example:
Stoney painted a scene for a play, Gil. That's a cool thing for a six-year-old to do. Irene took some salad, and then said in a more ingratiating tone, Your souffle is amazing. You're a great cook!

How it should read:
"Stoney painted a scene for a play, Gil. That's a cool thing for a six-year-old to do." Irene took some salad, and then said in a more ingratiating tone, "Your souffle is amazing. You're a great cook!"

Seriously, authors: please use quotation marks. Not using them just makes me, the reader, feel as though you put yourself above the rest of us and that makes me dislike you and any and all novels you write.

[Scarlet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Louise Erdrich's books but I generally don't actively like her characters, I just sort of tolerate them. The one time I did like her protagonist, there was something about the plot that didn't grab me and I never got past the first chapter or two.

This time, I am both intrigued by the characters and wholly drawn into the premise. This should be a great read. Wondering a little bit, too, if it's related at all to the breakup of her marriage to Michael Dorris.

***

Now that I've finished, I can say that it is the most gripping of any of her books that I've read (I think I've read about 5). So far, I find myself thinking about it as her personal commentary on her marriage, and whether she thought there was a chance of reconciliation. The use of a character named Louise was a little distracting; I couldn't help but think it was her older self commenting on the relationship. I wonder if this was primarily a personal act of exorcism.

I still have some thinking to do about this book.

[Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another stunner from Erdrich - love, hate, abuse, addiction, obsession, manipulation. A walloping ending that I DID NOT SEE COMING. I found the trick of narration a little odd once revealed. She writes such great young female characters - so alive, so angst-ridden, who see through the eyes of artist-poets. Hard not to see them as projections (reflections) of Erdrich herself. Her characters - her books - really touch me deeply.

[Clarissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Louise Erdrich we trust. Was für ein grausames, schönes Buch. Erdrichs Erzählkunst und Schreibstil sind meiner Meinung nach inzwischen über jeglichen Zweifel erhaben, wenn ich ein Buch von ihr beginne, weiß ich, dass ich einen literarischen Genuss vor mir habe.
Dieses hier habe ich als besonders schmerzlich empfunden, einerseits weil auch ich als Kind einer unglücklichen Ehe aufgewachsen bin und mich als Puffer zwischen meinen Eltern und Opfer von meinem Vater wiederfand. Aber auch ohne persönliche Verbindung zum Thema ist es schwer, dabeizubleiben während sich der Hass, die Aggression unaufhaltsam aufbaut und man nichts tun kann, um es zu stoppen oder die Figuren zu schützen.
In seiner Kürze ist das Buch unglaublich prägnant und konsequent. Eine große Empfehlung von mir.

[Gisela Hafezparast · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is about an incredibly toxic marriage between too very selfish, viscous people. Until the end this couple is obsessed with each other, often using their children as a tool to hurt each other. As always the children are settled with an incredible emotional package for their own life. Really made me furious.

Well written and even though none of the adults are in the least likable, very good characterisation, makes you think that she knew what she was talking about.

[Judith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have really enjoyed some of Erdich's past novels, particularly "The Master Butcher's Singing Club", but this one was depressing, gloomy, remorseful, sad, unhappy, and without redemption. Though I generally think it is unfair to compare an author's life to her book and deduce autobiographical points of reference, one can hardly help it in this case. The story is the description of the sad end of a marriage told through the eyes of the wife who has substance abuse problems. Her husband is a brilliant artist who is emotionally volatile and subject to physically lashing out at his wife and children. He has been commercially successful in his art which depicts his wife in various exposed positions, which he considers homage, and she considers exploitation. In the interests of good taste, I will not describe some of the pictures but think of the "Mona Lisa" as rendered by "Hustler" magazine and you get the drift.

In real life, Erdich's husband, Michael Dorris, was a brilliant author who committed suicide following allegations of child abuse including molestation. I believe they were estranged at the time. I hope this book was therapeutic for her because I have immense respect for both their works and sympathy for their pain.

[Allison · Rating 1 out of 5]

I HATED this book. I hated the concept, I hated the writing, I hated the characters, I hated the ending. This woman feels that she needs to lie to her husband, and to do so, she hides this diary full of lies that she knows he'll find. She's totally manipulative and it's really painful to read. But not just because you know she's being malicious. Also because the writing is so stilted. And there is SO much not-good sex-talk that goes on in this. It's actually very uncomfortable to read. No one's having fun. No one's leading the life they want. So they all torture and make each other miserable -- but Definitely Not in a way that I want to read about. Yuck.

[Cat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've changed my rating for this book between one star, two stars, and three stars several times because I can't decide how much I hate it. At times, I hate Shadow Tag with a burning passion deep down in my soul, so what saves it from a solid one star rating is that there are some aspects that I liked a little bit, I've read books of a much lower caliber than this that are more deserving of the one-star title, and I also think my hatred for the book is warped by my English teacher's horrible handling of teaching & analyzing this novel. If I had read this on my own, without my English teacher's or classmates' input, I might feel differently about the book (and probably hate it a lot less), but what I do know for sure is that, in either case, this is the kind of book I'll read once and never want to read again.


Shadow Tag is depressing. One of the reasons I so strongly dislike this book is because there isn't anything to like about it in the first place. It's about a dysfunctional, destructive family playing a game of "shadow tag" with each other - in my interpretation, this means that they're all chasing each other's shadows, or the false outward image of themselves that they present to everyone else to mask their true selves. But since all of them are hiding their true motives from each other, their power struggle is futile. No one is ever actually able to gain power over the others because none of them know how many secrets the other people are keeping (although I guess you could argue that Riel gains power over her father near the end of the story, when she gains enough courage to push him down). The plot essentially goes nowhere from the beginning of the story to the end, because the family is still just as fucked up as it was when the novel began, only Irene and Gil are dead by the end, so the reader is just left with their fucked-up children. It feels like a cheap victory for those two asshole parents, knowing that they never need to change or own up to their actions. They never have to live with the guilt of knowing that they've destroyed their children's lives - but then again, they're both such selfish people that unless they experience some sort of character growth, they wouldn't care that they were destroying their children's lives anyway. Especially not Gil. Because of this, the plot is static, just like the characters, and a story that's depressing from beginning to end with unlikeable characters and a static plot is not my idea of a good read.


Since a static plot and static characters are intimately interrelated (I mean, can you really have a dynamic plot if all the characters never grow? Or can you have characters that grow if nothing ever happens to them?), it's no surprise that all of the characters (except for, arguably, Riel) are static, too. That doesn't necessarily mean they're unlikeable characters, because there are plenty of really loveable supporting characters who remain static throughout the course of their respective stories, but because the characters in Shadow Tag are so unlikeable as is, it doesn't help that they remain static. Since they never grow, that means they never get any less unlikeable. And for me, reading about a bunch of completely unlikeable characters is pure torture.


Gil is the primary source of my unapologetic, passionate loathing of this novel. My hatred of him is so powerful that I would have ceased reading this book if I weren't being forced to read it for school, because he is that insufferable to me. But since I am being forced to read it for school, I had no choice but to trudge through the book and swallow back my hatred for Gil, repressing my desire to fling the book across the room, rip its pages out, or scream at the top of my lungs while reading Shadow Tag. Gil is the portrait of an abuser, possessing virtually every single red flag associated with abusers, yet my English teacher chooses to address him with flimsy euphemisms such as "misunderstood," "bad parent," etc, when he's actually a blatantly pathological narcissist with a volatile streak. I mean, he deserves to be labelled as a narcissistic abuser. "Bad parent" is an idiot like Irene, but he crosses the threshold of "bad parent" and plunges straight into the category of "toxic, disgusting, loathsome human being." Parent or not, Gil would be a terrible person either way.

He is completely self-absorbed, thinking exclusively of himself and how to extort his wife for his artistic purposes ALL. THE. TIME. There's a quote in the book where Irene says, "Art absorbs everything," which is essentially how Gil views the world. Nothing matters more to him than his precious art. His wife is not really his wife at all, just his muse, a sex object, an infuriating woman whose affections he's never been able to win with his narrow-minded, materialistic gifts. Gil paints Irene into every single damn situation or thing he can think of - virgin Irene, pregnant Irene, goddess Irene, Irene as a dog, Irene with an American flag stuck up her butt, Irene being raped - showing that he has no moral boundaries. There is no line between reality and art to Gil, because he has no shame in painting these intimate and immoral situations (e.g. Irene giving birth, Irene being raped, etc) and selling them for the whole world to see. Not only that, but he actively seeks out horrible situations and pain because he uses sick, negative emotion to feed his art. Many artists use their art as a creative outlet to release negative emotions or spread awareness about the terrible things that have happened to them - e.g. witnessing murder, being a victim of rape or abuse, struggling with a mental illness, etc - but Gil is the opposite. Instead of using art to release his negative emotions, he seeks out negative emotions to fuel his art, AND he does this at the expense of his relationship with Irene, completely disregarding her feelings as a human being. He views himself and everything around him as inspiration, but in a totally twisted way, where everything is just an object for him to manipulate in order to paint the perfect scene. At some point in the novel, he actually enjoys the distance between himself and Irene, and he doesn't want to fix their relationship because Irene's pain and hatred for him allow him to create emotionally-riveting works. It's disgusting. He's an artist of the worst kind.

On top of that, he's a narcissist and a control freak. This man is so narcissistic that he hates his own children because he's jealous that Irene loves them. He also wants to exert control over everything, so much that his son Florian refers to him as a "neutron star," because he's like a black hole that sucks everything in his proximity toward him. Once you're in Gil's orbit, he'll do everything in his power to make sure you won't get away. This especially applies to Irene. Gil doesn't love her as a wife, and he doesn't actually need her as his muse (since the Irene he paints is never the real Irene anyway, just his projection of what he WANTS her to be, and it's obvious he doesn't need her because during their second therapy session, Irene offers to continue sitting for him as long as he lets her and the children leave, and he says that she's not even essential to his work and he'd be better off without her, but he still won't let her leave, just because). The only reason Gil won't let Irene and the children leave is because he'd be losing his power. He wouldn't have anyone left to control; he wouldn't be able to fuck with Irene's emotions and body like a puppet on his string; he wouldn't have anyone left to manipulate to feed his sick need for pain. His whole reason for marrying Irene in the first place is because she was the only woman to ever resist his womanizing charms. Instead of falling for him and being pleased by all the material objects he presents her with, Irene hates him for that, her hatred increasing even more each time he tries to use gifts to please her, so Gil, perplexed by her rejection of his gifts, pursues her affections endlessly. He's so narrow-minded that he thinks eventually, he'll give her a gift that's amazing enough to buy him her affections, not realizing that material items aren't going to do anything to win him Irene's favor. By rejecting him like this, Irene takes away some of his power, so Gil pursues her endlessly, not out of affection, but out of a need to win his power back and make himself feel like her controls her happiness. (Unfortunately, he already does. Not in the sense he's hoping for, but obviously, Irene is anything but happy in this marriage, and Gil bars her from her happiness by refusing to let her divorce him.) He does the same thing to his children with his "heart's desire project," thinking that he can BUY them their heart's deepest desire. Even when his daughter Riel tells him her heart's desire is "world peace," a non-tangible object, Gil still buys her a superficial item (a sign saying, "Say No to War in Iraq/n - because yes, Gil, that totally fulfills her dream of seeing world peace... *hardcore sarcasm*).

And last but not least, Gil is extremely violent. When Riel flinches because he suddenly reached out to stroke her hair and it surprised her, it reminds him of his violent tendencies, and he becomes angry she could view his innocent gesture as aggressive, so he hits her. Gil also hits Florian, striking him so hard that his "forehead hit the table with a loud crack," when Florian lies to him about completing his book report. Irene tells him, "He lied because he's scared of you, Gil," but that just makes Gil even angrier, and he accuses Irene of being "too soft" on Florian, i.e. "he deserves to be hit!!" And of course, the prime example of Gil's violent, power-hungry nature is when Irene tries to convince him to sign the divorce papers. Infuriated, he attacks and rapes her. There is not an ounce of sympathy in me for this man. He's an evil, evil character, and I'm so pissed he had the nerve to try to drink himself to death out of pity for himself when the pitiful ones are really everyone around him. Look at all the lives you've destroyed, Gil. You're a monster and a coward who tries to escape the consequences of what you've done to everyone around you.


It's not that Irene isn't a bad person. She has her own fair share of flaws; however, I cannot agree with anyone (like my English teacher) who claims that she is just as bad of a person as Gil. Gil is an absolute monster, while Irene is a victim of Gil's existence. At most, she's an idiot who makes a lot of bad decisions that ultimately lead her and her family to destruction. Yes, she's the one who chose to marry Gil in spite of a bad omen the day before their wedding. Yes, she cheated on her abusive asshole of a husband. Yes, she's irresponsible and an alcoholic. I'm not excusing her behavior. But when you're in a marriage as toxic as hers, very few people stay sane. Especially because she literally has no friends before May comes along (she shuts everyone out because of Gil, which is already enough of a red flag in itself), and she can't exactly ask her children for help on what to do if their father is abusing her. With no healthy way to cope with her marriage and no one to confide in, Irene basically just has her diary and alcohol. She and Gil are so caught up in their own problems, with Gil completely wrapped up in his narcissism & power-hungriness and Irene desperately trying to stay afloat as he tries to possess her, that it's no wonder they neglect their children. But if you're going to paint Irene as irresponsible (and irresponsible she is), Gil deserves the exact same label. Holding Irene solely responsible for the suffering of her children is bullshit. I've heard classmates pin all the blame on Irene and call her an irresponsible parent just because she's the mother. Fuck those gender roles! Gil is the children's parent, too! So he can go around painting all day and beating the children but he's not irresponsible, just Irene??? Seriously, that's total fucking bullshit. That's the same line of thinking that Florian's asshole teacher, Mr. Graham, pushes onto Irene when he knows that Gil is beating Florian, but he just tells her that he won't call the police if she promises to protect Florian. Like, what the hell??? What about HER? Just because Florian's a genius and his teacher wants to see him thrive in school, why does that mean it's his mother's sole responsibility to make sure he lives up to his potential? The WHOLE FAMILY suffers from Gil's violence, not just Florian, but somehow it's Irene's fault that Florian isn't doing well in school, because she "should be making certain that his life is as supportive and sustaining as possible, as his mother," and SHE is the one "responsible for giving him the stability that he needs in order to flourish." Right, and she could do that - IF HER HUSBAND WASN'T AN ABUSIVE ASSHOLE???. This kind of disgusting, poisonous, victim-shaming mindset that the teacher and some of my peers share is not fucking okay. In no way, shape, or form is it ever the victim's fault that their abuser abuses them. It's the abuser's fault, period.

Irene is also manipulative in regards to Gil, since the whole premise of the novel is that Irene keeps two diaries - one being her real diary, and the other being a fake diary she uses to manipulate Gil. Gil is the one who violates her trust by reading her private diary in the first place, though. Irene can't even retain a basic right to privacy in her marriage because Gil feels the need to know everything about her (part of his overwhelming desire to control her - and everything around him). In the beginning of the novel, I criticized Irene for going to such drastic measures that she had to write her real diary in the bank and lock it in a safe deposit box there, rather than just communicating with her husband about the flaws in their relationship, but as the novel progressed, it became clear that she couldn't do that. She was too afraid of Gil, and Gil wouldn't have wanted to listen to her anyway, because he never does. Whenever Irene tries to communicate with Gil in this novel, it has to come out in the form of a joke, since he won't take her seriously either way. And after a thousand times of telling him that she wants to leave him, she goes to Gil with the divorce papers and genuinely tries to communicate her intentions to leave, which just results in him raping her. So yes, Irene is not a good person, but in no way do I blame her for all the shit that goes down in this novel, nor is she anywhere near as bad of a person as Gil.


Then there's the children. They all turned out fucked up in some way, more or less, because of their parents. Stoney is too young for the reader to really form an opinion about him, nor does he actually show up very much in the text. When he does, we just feel the aching sadness that he lives in an environment so perverse that he thinks the wine glass is a part of his alcoholic mother's body, and when he grows up, he is so disconnected from his sense of family that he doesn't talk to the remainder of his immediate family, Riel and Florian, very much.

We can see the obvious effects of her parents' destructive marriage on Riel, though. She is obsessed with preparing for an apocalyptic event, becoming (physically and emotionally) strong, and "overpowering" her father. Despite being 11, she's forced to grow up quickly to deal with the circumstances she was born into. At one point in the story, she wishes that she does not have to act like an "age-old ancestor" and could instead ask for mundane things like high-heeled shoes, a longboard, a skateboard, and a helmet. But she can't, and that's heartbreaking. Instead, she spends her childhood plotting how to protect herself from her father and building an emergency stash in various places of the house to protect her family from a potential apocalypse.

Out of all the characters in the story, the one I got the closest to liking, however short-lived that was, is Florian. He's the thirteen-year-old genius of the family, so intelligent that he takes university classes and finished high school math by fifth grade. It's pretty shocking when the text reveals he's only 13, because from the way he acts, I'd guessed he was around 15-17. But no. He sounds mature partially because he's a genius, but also because like Riel, he has had no choice but to grow up too quickly. As the first-born child, he makes it his mission to protect his siblings, and he's the typical, cynical teenager in ripped jeans and rock band tee shirts, furiously hating his parents - but with good reason. The scary thing about Florian, though, is how much he resembles his father, both physically and through his behavior. The first time Florian is described, the reader is told, "Of them all, Florian looked the most like Gil," and the text repeatedly emphasizes how handsome he is. There are scary hints that Gil is rubbing off on Florian, like when he gets stoned while his parents aren't home, and he tells the babysitter, "Don't tell, O beautiful pearl sea woman," with a crooked grin, using that same womanizing charm his father has to dissuade her. I think the scary part about Florian is that you want to pray he won't turn into his father in the future, but things just don't look good for him. He turns to drinking and all kinds of drugs to deal with his shitty family life, and even makes a mock-attempt at suicide at one point, and by the end of the novel, he's had such a hard time coping with everything that he drops out of school even though he's a genius. (Eventually he re-enrolls in school, but the point is that, as the oldest, he's been impacted the most negatively by his parents.) Like Riel, he has extremely conflicting feelings toward his parents. Sometimes it seems like he hates them both. Irene tells Gil that Florian always hated him, and the third-person narrative in the story also repeats this fact, but Florian tells Gil that Irene took a picture of the bruise he got when Gil hit him - although, perhaps he did so out of fear, since his father did strike him for lying in the first place - and he viciously insults his mother when she catches him drinking and staring at her paintings, calling her weak and blaming her for not leaving his father. To be fair, though, putting yourself in Florian's shoes justifies his anger. After all these years, seeing what his father does to him, his siblings, and his mother, he must be extremely angry that Irene continues to stay with Gil. As the reader, I can see the issue from both sides and sympathize with both of them - Irene, who lacks the strength to make a very difficult decision, and Florian, who hates his mother for not getting the hell away from Gil and protecting her children.


Despite all the shitty parts, there were small things I liked about this novel. I really loved the closeness between Florian and Riel (probably the result of them being so close in age). I loved the part when all three siblings crawled into bed together to comfort each other as their parents fought while they were trying to sleep - a heartbreaking but realistically raw moment. I loved the raw reality of this novel, because I know there are horribly toxic marriages out there, like Gil and Irene's. But in the end, I hate how gross interpretations of this novel, like victim-shaming Irene, have warped my ability to enjoy it.

(I want to say more, but I hit the word limit ;-;)

[Gabriella B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should be in every native horror anthology lmfao

I think if this was any other author I don’t think I would have picked it up but Louise has a way of writing that made me want to continue the story, chilling in some parts. Losing yourself to a man, especially as he physically consumes your image for his own benefit, is a native woman fear that Erdrich brings to life in this story of a failing marriage that destroys everything in its path. When she is able to compare her journey to that of a dead Guinea pig killed by a dog, but trying to revive it still, you know you are a masterful writer.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though the relationship between the couple in this book is disturbing and confounding, the book is haunting in its prose and the story is heartbreaking in its effects on the children, who are all well-drawn characters, as are their parents. The references to shadows and other images used as metaphors are subtle and well-placed. As with many of the novels I end up really liking, I found that the ending 'made' the book for me. This was my first Erdrich novel and I'm glad I finally read her.

[Melissa Sutton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn’t finish this book. I tried but once I realized the reason I was struggling was there was no use of quotation marks, I just knew I couldn’t get past that. I loved the concept of the book. Wish I could have finished it.

[Sarinys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Louise Erdrich ha scritto parecchio. In Italia viene pubblicata da qualche anno, da Feltrinelli. Per ora, sono usciti solo 4 dei suoi romanzi. Uno recentissimo, LaRose (2016), fa parte di quella che viene considerata una trilogia, assieme a Il giorno dei colombi (2008) e La casa tonda (2012). Sono ambientati in una riserva indiana, immaginaria e realistica, che viene spesso accostata alla contea Yoknapatawpha di Faulkner. Di quei tre, per ora ho letto solo Il giorno dei colombi, che è un bellissimo romanzo corale, di quelli che sembrano raccontare tante storie separate tra loro, ma che in realtà hanno un altro senso se messe tutte insieme.

Faccio questa premessa per dire varie cose: che Louise Erdrich è una scrittrice prolifica attualmente ancora molto attiva, forse al picco della maturità artistica; che Passo nell’ombra (2010) è stato pubblicato in mezzo ai primi due titoli della trilogia; [regolandomi solo su Il giorno dei colombi] che ha e non ha cose in comune con quel materiale.

Non mi si fraintenda per le tre stelline, il libro è bello. Non tanto nelle mie corde, eppure si è fatto leggere volentieri. Non nelle mie corde perché racconta una vicenda familiare, e su quella famiglia si chiude; quella famiglia è il mondo del romanzo. Mi piacciono storie del genere quando sono thriller psicologici, ma i drammi, che non entrano in quella specifica zona del disturbante, di solito li evito. Ma poi, in realtà, anche questi drammi sono disturbanti; e infatti Passo nell’ombra raccontando, più che una vicenda, una rete di relazioni tra moglie, marito e prole, è in effetti tanto disturbante quanto disturbate sono le relazioni di cui parla.

Ero stata forse ingannata dalla premessa dei due diari, anticipata dalla quarta di copertina, che pare l’aggancio classico a una vicenda psychothriller. Ma qui non si parla tanto di percezione della realtà (come fa spesso il thriller psicologico), anche se in qualche modo si finisce per parlare di gaslighting, una forma di abuso che con la percezione della realtà c’entra eccome. Fatto affascinante, l’autrice del gaslighting è la protagonista Irene (con la faccenda dei diari), che però, quando si risolve ad adottare questa strategia, è stata a lungo vittima di abusi da parte del marito. Incrociando le crudeltà coniugali, Erdrich è riuscita a scrivere una storia di amore infelice e distruttivo che non si trasforma mai in una guerra dei Roses. Questo perché l’autrice rimane ancorata alla realtà, lontana da satire e farse, bazzicando il lato oscuro della normalità che poi, se la guardi bene, da vicino, tanto sana non è.

In tutto questo, molto bene, Louise Erdrich. Quindi, cosa non mi convinceva tanto? A sentirmi ora, non lo so più neanche io :) . In realtà, penso ci siano da un lato delle questioni individuali (cosa mi aspettavo dal libro, cosa leggo di solito), dall’altro c’è che forse la materia su cui si basa Passo nell’ombra non è così entusiasmante, non ha un respiro largo come invece Il giorno dei colombi. Però, ripeto, è un buon romanzo, tra l’altro breve, che consiglierei a chi invece abbia passioni diverse dalle mie solite e non provi avversione per questo tipo di dramma familiare.

La materia prima pare sia ispirata alla vicenda autobiografica di Louise Erdrich, qui trasformata in fiction, con tutte le metafore, trasposizioni e mutamenti del caso, rispetto alla vita vera. A me ha ricordato a tratti altri due romanzi che ho letto di recente. Uno è L’età adulta di Ann-Marie MacDonald, anch’esso romanzo di finzione tratto dalla vera storia della scrittrice. Come Passo nell'ombra, scende nel dettaglio angosciante di momenti della quotidianità familiare, approfondisce più le relazioni che la storia. Un altro libro che mi è venuto in mente è Le cose che restano di Jenny Offill; sarà stata la casa vicino al lago (i laghi, che presenze minacciose), la famiglia straordinaria, fatta di gente un po’ geniale e un po’ disadattata, con tutto quel che di meraviglioso e tragico ne può derivare.

Passo nell’ombra pare sia scollegato dalla trilogia recente, anche se ho notato che uno dei personaggi nominati, il defunto nonno, Gilbert Florian LaRose, ha lo stesso nome che dà il titolo al nuovo romanzo di Louise Erdrich, LaRose, quindi presumo che non sia del tutto casuale.

[GoldGato · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the Dark Side of fiction. At least that's how it came across to me, as I felt repulsed by the main characters even as I could barely put the book down to eat an unending line of turkey sandwiches (I was on a long train ride).

It is the end of a marriage between a husband, who comes across as self-entitled and violent, and a wife, who comes across as self-entitled and angry. Their three children all appear to be geniuses, and each gets a narrative. When the wife discovers her husband has been reading her diary, she creates a false one full of lies to egg him on. Meanwhile, she keeps a separate diary that reflects her real thoughts. Interesting way to handle the dissolution of a long-term relationship, which is why I had a difficult time putting the book away.

I would like to have given it that extra fourth star, but the people in the book just did not deserve my sympathy. The husband would suddenly hit a child, and I had to understand where his anger came from, all the while the wife is drinking and trying to come across as the one needing sympathy. Her very act of writing false entries shows a narcissistic view of self, which really put me off. I understand this is Erdrich's telling of her own marriage that crumbled, which is why it is so very personal. And why is every child born to an American mother always considered some kind of genius? Really? How about just self absorbed and effed-up.

The writing is beautiful, but just couldn't abide the characters. But I loved the heroic doggies, thumbs up for them.

Book Season = Winter (Minnesota, nuff said)

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

She gets a 5 because I'm such a fan -- this was difficult to read, however, a searing portrait of a dysfunctional marriage. It's beautifully written, fearless (she has courage, this novelist) & raw, constructed with delicacy yet appalling, describing a sick marital symbiosis that is quite unsettling -- the characters are so unattractive I couldn't muster much compassion for them, feeling by the end that truly some people simply shouldn't breed. But these characters look fine on the surface. They even display seemingly enviable lives. We have wife Irene, brilliant PhD candidate, husband Gil, talented successful painter, 3 precocious children, animals. We have rampant destructiveness. We have an outrageously comical section involving a guinea pig. It's lacerating, it's powerful, it has the great, inevitable ending.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating premise of a woman who discovers her husband has been reading her diary, so uses the entries to shake him up and test him. As the couple struggles to find a path through their crumbling marriage, we root for them, as well as for their three children also deeply affected by the progression. In the hands of Erdrich, this typical theme of many books gains a special resonance in the skilled metaphors she employs and perceptive portrayal of the games people play when the stakes are so high. In the process, the relationship between art and life is nicely plumbed. The following review makes the argument that Louise Erdrich's challenging relationship with Michael Dorris informs this novel.

[Natasha North · Rating 5 out of 5]

She's done it again. I can't even write about the ineffable beauty of Erdrich's work.

[Karen Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in one sitting today.... I just couldn’t put it down! Its an unsettling story of an artist, his muse and their unfortunate children that witness their calculated manipulations. This is an incredibly toxic marriage, full of violence and twisted, obsessive love. Beautiful writing, though this is a portrait of a truly ugly, noxious relationship.