Nov 28

Nov 28 The Sentence

Author: Louise Erdrich
Publisher: Harper
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.

Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

In this stunning and timely novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors.

Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

TL;DR Review

The Sentence is a moving novel about the pandemic and the protests of June 2020, told through a formerly incarcerated bookseller’s eyes. Reading it felt like poking a fresh wound, but this book is excellent.

For you if: You like books about bookstores and/or want to read more books by Native American authors

Full Review

Thank you to Harper Books for sending me an advanced copy of this book. This was actually my first book by Louise Erdrich, a prolific and highly regarded Native American author (she won last year’s Pulitzer, in fact). It certainly won’t be my last.

The Sentence is set primarily at Erdrich’s bookstore in Minneapolis and takes place from November 2019 to November 2020, and so a lot of the events center on COVID lockdown and the summer protests in response to George Floyd’s murder (who, you may remember, was killed in Minneapolis). It’s told through the eyes of one of the booksellers, a formerly incarcerated woman named Tookie. One of the bookstore’s most loyal customers passed away in November 2019, and her ghost is haunting the store. Tookie and the whole cast of characters (including, as a side character, Erdrich herself, what a flex) navigate current events and try to give their ghost the closure she’s looking for.

There’s so much to say about this one. I love Erdrich’s focus on Native American characters and their present-day lived realities. I love that she was brave enough to tell this story, so soon after the actual events — and especially as a resident of in Minneapolis. I loved that it took place in a bookstore and shone a light on how small businesses weathered the pandemic. I loved that the title has multiple meanings and resonates deeply.

Reading this one felt a little like poking an open wound, but it was worth it. When you’re ready, pick this one up.