The Sentence

The coronavirus pandemic is still raging away and God knows we’ll be reading novels about it for years, but Louise Erdrich’s “The Sentence” may be the best one we ever get. Neither a grim rehashing of the lockdown nor an apocalyptic exaggeration of the virus, her book offers the kind of fresh reflec......more

It was like the beginning of every show where the streets empty and something terrifying emerges from mist or fire.---------------------------------------I passed streams of people with signs, packs, water bottles. I passed squad cars and squadrons. I passed burnt-out stores with walls like b......more

To my dear Goodreads friends that adored this book, I apologize for having to sit out this particular dance. It’s not that I loathed it; I just didn’t feel particularly moved by it. I didn’t want to get out of my chair and let loose. The rhythm threw me off quite often, and the character of the tune......more

Sentence , a word of multiple meanings - the sentence that the main character, an ex con named Tookie serves in jail, the sentences in this book and the so many other books mentioned here, (thankfully Erdrich gave us a list at the end), the sentences the characters sometimes impose on themselves . T......more

Erdrich is a master of prose. Her characters are both complex and real. Her stories layered with rich native culture. Tookie is a quirky if not whacky but endearing character. After serving her sentence for a crime she didn’t think was a crime, but just helping out a friend and then framed for it, sh......more