Louise Erdrich
publisher
Harper
format
Hardcover
pages
272
Per Petterson
Mrs. Somebody, Somebody
Tracy Winn
With Violets
Elizabeth Robards
Bill Warrington's Last Stand
James King
I read Louise Erdrich's new novel, SHADOW TAG, on a recent vacation in the sun, and I began the book and finished it in one sitting. This book is a departure in some ways for Erdrich, for she tackles fewer native American issues than in her past novels, but if you know about her distressing personal life, you can't help but read it as autobiographical. It's the story of a marriage unraveling. If it weren't for Erdrich's gift for storytelling, this grim and violent tale might be hard to take, but somehow Erdrich's depiction of this family tragedy left me wanting and needing to know what happens as things inexorably fall apart.
About the AuthorLouise Erdrich is the author of twelve novels as well as volumes of poetry, children's books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her debut novel, Love Medicine, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent novel, The Plague of Doves, a New York Times bestseller, received the highest praise from Philip Roth, who wrote, "Louise Erdrich's imaginative freedom has reached its zenith—The Plague of Doves is her dazzling masterpiece." Louise Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.
Beyond the book
From Publishers Weekly
Erdrich's bleak latest (after The Plague of Doves) chronicles the collapse of a family. Irene America is a beautiful, introspective woman of Native American ancestry, struggling to finish her dissertation while raising three children. She is married to Gil, a painter whose reputation is built on a series of now iconic portraits of Irene, but who can't break through to the big time, pigeonholed as a Native American painter. Irene's fallen out of love with Gil and discovers that he's been reading her diary, so she begins a new, hidden, diary and uses her original diary as a tool to manipulate Gil. Erdrich deftly alternates between excerpts from these two diaries and third-person narration as she plots the emotional war between Irene and Gil, and Gil's dark side becomes increasingly apparent as Irene, fighting her own alcoholism, struggles to escape. Erdrich ties her various themes together with an intriguing metaphor—riffing on Native American beliefs about portraits as shadows and shadows as souls—while her steady pacing and remarkable insight into the inner lives of children combine to make this a satisfying and compelling novel. (Feb.)