The Round House: A Novel

Author Louise Erdrich, a member of the Chippewa (Ojibwa) nation, here writes one of her most powerful and emotionally involving novels. Though it starts as a crime story on the reservation, it quickly becomes an intense search for justice on all levels. It is also an examination of the lives of her characters, both old and young, as they face the challenges of reservation life. Their lives, as she shows in this novel, are seriously restricted by 1988, when this novel's action takes place, and any Native American who wants to honor the "old ways" on the reservation must now survive on infertile lands which cannot support him. Their culture has been seriously compromised by the arrival of Catholic missionaries who have weaned them away from their myths and traditions. Significantly, legal jurisdiction over crimes involving Native Americans now involves tribal officials, state police, and even the FBI.In a powerful opening scene, filled with symbols and portents, thirteen-year-old Antone Basil Coutts (Joe), only child and namesake of Judge Coutts and his wife Geraldine, is helping his father to pull tiny seedlings from cracks in the foundation of their house, awaiting Geraldine's return from her office. When she finally arrives at home, she is almost unrecognizable, so badly beaten she can hardly see, reeking of gasoline and so traumatized by rape and other crimes that she has become mute. Young Joe knows that it will be up to him and his father to identify who has done this. They begin to study his father's old cases searching clues.Joe is still a child, however, and though his empathetic father wants to protect him as much as possible, Joe becomes obsessed with getting his mother "back," determined to find and punish the rapist on his own. These tensions add drama and meaning to the novel, and Joe's contacts with others, both in his family and outside it, expand the scope. The sweat lodge ceremony is described, the extortion of elderly Indians by a white-owned supermarket on Indian land is detailed, the raucous and sexy (and hilarious) talk of elderly family members is recorded, the "flirting" of a stripper living with Joe's uncle is tension-filled and emotional, the appearance of ghosts to Joe, and the efforts of a local priest, a former soldier injured in Lebanon in 1983, are all described to powerful effect, keeping the interest and involvement of the reader at high pitch.As in her other novels, Erdrich provides a sense of continuity by including characters from other books in this one - including the priestly Nanapush (from Tracks), who was an inspiration to Mooshum, thought now to be one hundred six years old in this novel. Mooshum, whose story is told here, was also a main character in The Plague of Doves, a book which also includes Judge Antone Basil Coutts, father of this novel's main character Joe, and Corwin Peace, father of Joe's friend Zach. By repeating these characters through successive generations, Erdrich provides a genealogy and sense of history which add to the sense of time and place, and highlight the changes, not all of them good, taking place within the community. The novel, one of Erdrich's best, will keep serious readers totally engaged with its sensitive descriptions and insights, even as those interested in just a "good story" will celebrate the action, excitement, and the issues it raises.

First, I'd like to address some of the negative reviews by pointing out what seems obvious to me (but apparently is not to some disgruntled readers): this is a work of literary fiction. It is not a "mystery" (though it has some elements of suspense) and it is not a thriller, and it is not meant to be a fast read you can skim over and forget. It is a literary novel, and yes, it focuses on reservation life in a certain time and place. If you are a reader who does not want to read about some of the hard realities of life, or a reader who is not interested in, or perhaps even offended by, portrayals of white racism, you'll want to skip this book. You may also want to skip this if you have zero tolerance for the mythical, though this book has less of the mythical and folkloric elements than some of her other books.Now other fans of Erdrich, like me, and other readers of literary fiction, I can get on with the rest of the review.For me this is a beautiful book, well worth reading, though not her finest. I reserve that for my two favorites--Tracks and Love Medicine. Still, this book is compelling, well written, and it kept me thinking about it days after I read it.Yes the story does contain a "mystery" to be solved, and that part--the slow discovery of who committed this awful crime--does pull a reader through the story. The point, though, isn't to rush through and guess. The point is to think about these characters and their lives. I thought Erdrich captured a certain time very well, and unfortunately, I recognized too well the casual racism expressed in parts (the white woman who suggests that Native people should go to "their own" hospital, for example). I'm not sure those things are all changed, unfortunately, but the prejudice expressed seemed typical of the uneasy relationships between Native people and white people that I found particularly accurate of the 80s/90's and earlier. And of course, the violence many Native women experience, and the ways in which there is a lack of will to even attempt to find justice, is still, unfortunately, heartrendingly true. For me, this book was painful to read--it so accurately portrayed--but also powerful. This truth is important--stories like this need to be told.And one of Erdrich's gifts as a writer has always been to be able to tell hard truths, but make them palatable to a wide variety of readers. She does this with her brilliant characterization, and her gift for the comic and unexpected. There are plenty of light moments in this book, from the boy's discussion of Star Trek: The Next Generation, to the birthday party for an elder that goes wrong, to the ribald humor of a raunchy old grandmother. It is these things that lighten up a book that overall, is a very depressing tale indeed.It is character, in fact, that drives this novel, and the decisions of the young narrator are particularly interesting and compelling. Though this has been touted as a "coming of age" novel, it is only that in that shares the "loss of innocence" theme with that genre. Here is a boy, a good boy, who we get to know in the beginning as he is actually enjoying weeding with his father, who is suddenly thrust into a particularly ugly world. How he struggles with some very difficult situations, and how he makes mistakes, is one of the most beautiful things about this book. There are also several other more minor characters that are really well drawn (so much so, in fact, that they almost take over in places). There is a fascinating priest, and an ex-stripper, and for fans of Erdrich's other books, Nanapush (one of my favorite characters) also makes an appearance.This is also a book that meditates on the nature of evil. What causes people to do evil? There is a side story about the Windigo which is fascinating, and asks the question about evil and how to deal with evil-doers. This is a particularly compelling question in the times we live in, and of course, Erdrich, like any wise person, has no real answers, only a lot of questions. It is this part of the book that kept me thinking long after I'd finished the book.This is not to say that this book is flawless, which is why I did not give it 5 stars. While I love the character development, I thought that there were times that the characters and situations got away with her, and it seemed indulgent. The birthday party scene, as other noted was one of the places I felt like could have been trimmed, and some of the moments of the young boys discussions also were engaging but could have been trimmed to make the book tighter. But I'm also not a fan of her more "comic" novels, so perhaps that is just my taste as a reader.Overall, though a great, thought provoking read!