Tournament of Books discussion

LaRose by Louise Erdrich

About the Book (source: Amazon.com)
North Dakota, late summer, 1999. Landreaux Iron stalks a deer along the edge of the property bordering his own. He shoots with easy confidence—but when the buck springs away, Landreaux realizes he’s hit something else, a blur he saw as he squeezed the trigger. When he staggers closer, he realizes he has killed his neighbor’s five-year-old son, Dusty Ravich.
The youngest child of his friend and neighbor, Peter Ravich, Dusty was best friends with Landreaux’s five-year-old son, LaRose. The two families have always been close, sharing food, clothing, and rides into town; their children played together despite going to different schools; and Landreaux’s wife, Emmaline, is half sister to Dusty’s mother, Nola. Horrified at what he’s done, the recovered alcoholic turns to an Ojibwe tribe tradition—the sweat lodge—for guidance, and finds a way forward. Following an ancient means of retribution, he and Emmaline will give LaRose to the grieving Peter and Nola. “Our son will be your son now,” they tell them.
LaRose is quickly absorbed into his new family. Plagued by thoughts of suicide, Nola dotes on him, keeping her darkness at bay. His fierce, rebellious new “sister,” Maggie, welcomes him as a coconspirator who can ease her volatile mother’s terrifying moods. Gradually he’s allowed shared visits with his birth family, whose sorrow mirrors the Raviches’ own. As the years pass, LaRose becomes the linchpin linking the Irons and the Raviches, and eventually their mutual pain begins to heal.
But when a vengeful man with a long-standing grudge against Landreaux begins raising trouble, hurling accusations of a cover-up the day Dusty died, he threatens the tenuous peace that has kept these two fragile families whole.
Inspiring and affecting, LaRose is a powerful exploration of loss, justice, and the reparation of the human heart, and an unforgettable, dazzling tour de force from one of America’s most distinguished literary masters.

About the Author: (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_...)
Louise Erdrich (born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954)[1] is an Ojibwe writer of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a band of the Anishinaabe (also known as Ojibwe and Chippewa).[2]
Erdrich is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of the Native American Renaissance. In 2009, her novel The Plague of Doves was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and also received an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.[3] In November 2012, she received the National Book Award for Fiction for her novel The Round House.[4] She was awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction at the National Book Festival in September, 2015.[5] She was married to author Michael Dorris and the two collaborated on a number of works.
She is also the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis that focuses on Native American literature and the Native community in the Twin Cities.[6]

Erdrich’s publishing blog: http://birchbarkbooks.com/blog

Twitter handles: Erdrich the author: @RoundHouseBooks Erdrich the publicist: @birchbarkbooks
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Happy reading!!

I've started listening to this one on audiobook, and I would 100% recommend the audio version. It's read by Erdrich herself and it is lovely.

Sara wrote: "I've started listening to this one on audiobook, and I would 100% recommend the audio version. It's read by Erdrich herself and it is lovely."

Dern. I just bought the hardback. Love a great audiobook.

Finishing up the paper version and I am Blown. Away.

Jan wrote: "Finishing up the paper version and I am Blown. Away."

I was too! For some reason it makes me so happy when another reader loves this book.

Judy wrote: "Jan wrote: "Finishing up the paper version and I am Blown. Away."

I was too! For some reason it makes me so happy when another reader loves this book."

Me too! One of my favorite reads this year. The book description almost turned me away from reading it. It sounded like a painful read. Erdrich pulled off quite a feat.

I actually listened to it and was blown away -- Erdrich read it herself and was damn near perfect. I could see each of those people. You know, I went totally off Erdrich, for years -- felt her books were all alike, like Amy Tan's, and there was a ... coy jocularity to them that I disliked, and then I was really uncomfortable with the Michael Dorris years and then the horrible aftermath -- anyway, I was totally off her. Then I saw the praise for The Round House, read it, and was blown away, and now this one, too. She's a different writer than she was. And her voice is spectacular. I do recommend the audiobook.

I also listened to the audiobook. I LOVED this book, and Erdich is a great reader. This is my first time reading her, but now I'm really eager to read more.

This shortlist is spectacular.

This may be my favorite new book of the year so far - it's just so, so incredible.

@Ehrrin, I'm slowly working my through Erdrich's earlier works, but I can highly recommend Plague of Doves and The Round House, which I think are her most recent before LaRose and form a loose trilogy. We see some of the same characters, like the priest, in ways that make some of the plot developments in LR even more poignant.

Wow. Just wow. Finished this yesterday and I still feel like I'm there on the reservation.

After trying and failing to get into this novel once before, I think I'm finally into it. the first 30 pages or so felt too dry or something, but now that we're into exploring the humor and dysfunction of some of these characters, I'm finally a willing participant in the ride.