Author(s): Louise Erdrich

Fiction | Marianne's Book Talkers

It is 2019 in America, All Souls Day, when the borderline that separates the living from the dead is most porous. Recently released from a decades-long prison sentence, Tookie - a headstrong and deeply wronged Ojibwe woman with a chequered past - must make a life for herself in a changed, charged world. During her incarceration, her only lifeline were the books she 'learned to read with murderous attention', so when she finds work at a local independent bookshop she also finds kindred spirits among an eclectic, often eccentric, community of fellow booksellers and readers. But soon the ghosts come calling. When the bookshop's most persistent customer, Flora, dies, she refuses to leave the shelves alone and it soon becomes clear this revenant has unfinished business with Tookie in particular. As the months pass, a deadly disease spreads, violence ignites, nature howls - and Tookie is drawn deeper into her quest to discover what Flora's message might be, while trying to navigate her complicated love with the tribal police officer who arrested her all those years ago. Her search leads her right back to her roots and the stories her ancestors told; what Tookie unearths is a shocking personal revelation that resonates beyond her to a world in pain. Can the dead teach the living how to survive the present? Can the living lay injustices of the past to rest in peace? The Sentence is an unforgettable novel about an unforgettable year. It is a novel about identity, redemption, betrayal and forgiveness; a ghost story, a love story and a love letter to the haunting power of the written word.

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: MARIANNE

Goodness knows why I’ve never read Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louise Erdrich before, but now I’ll be diving into her back catalogue because The Sentence was one of my favourite novels of 2021.

As well as getting into the author’s extensive backlist, I’m knee-deep in the 150-book suggested reading list at the end of this novel, because at heart, it’s a book about books, and reading, and bookshops, and how all of those things can conspire – sometimes against great odds – to make and enrich a life.

It’s also a novel of our times, this strange and fraught moment in history, and how we live and read our way through it all, somehow. It feels timely and classic, all at once!