"The Sentence," by Louise Erdrich

When Louise Erdrich’s wonderful novels started coming out in the 1980s, I read and was impressed by those early novels: “Love Medicine,” “The Beet Queen,” and more. Erdrich was one of the first Native American writers to be widely read, thus creating a major representation of Native Americans, and a major contribution to diversity of literature in the United States and beyond. The author herself is of mixed Native American and European heritage. Many of her novels take place on or near reservations. For some reason, after reading the early novels, I stopped reading Erdrich’s work. I can’t remember exactly why. But this month, I read enough positive reviews about her new novel, “The Sentence” (Harper, 2021), that I bought and read it. One of the big draws for me is that the novel largely takes place in an independent bookstore (in Minneapolis) that focuses on Native American literature, as part of its wider variety of books. It happens that Erdrich also owns and runs a bookstore in Minnesota. I also like the idea of the wordplay around the title. The “sentence” refers to the main character’s time in prison for a strange incident that was not really her fault. It also refers to the main character's (Tookie’s) sentences – mostly from the many books that this character reads – that are meaningful to her. The main thread in the story is that there is a ghost in the bookstore whose noisy presence seems to be aimed at Tookie, and is increasingly distressing for her. (According to the author bio, Erdrich’s real life bookstore also has a ghost.) Tookie is a great character, vivid and unique, and she is surrounded by other wonderful characters: her husband, her stepdaughter, her colleagues in the bookstore, the store’s regular customers, and more. Since “The Sentence” takes place in 2019-2020, it also addresses the COVID pandemic and the demonstrations related to the George Floyd murder. Although the book deals with serious topics regarding the oppression of Native Americans through history and currently, as well as regarding the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, this novel has many humorous moments as well. And throughout, there are so many mentions of books that are important to the characters, and to history; books are a powerful presence. After reading this novel, I may be going back to some of Erdrich’s novels that I missed over the past three decades.