Paromjit's Reviews > The Sentence

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.