(4 / 5) – So Worth It!
Louise Erdrich has been recommended from time to time to me and I finally picked up a couple of her books and then after seeing an online recommendation for “The Sentence” as a fall, ghost read, I dived in and boy was it a ride!
“The Sentence” is set in Minneapolis, MN around the murder of George Floyd and it dives into the emotional complexity of that event, wrapped in the web of the COVID pandemic and rooted in relationship built, maintained and sometimes lost between humans. Erdrich breathes life into each page of this novel and offers the reader an opportunity to experience a moment in time through the eyes, footsteps and emotions of others.
This is not particularly easy content to read. The themes and questions it wrestles with pluck at a lot of darker and slightly sinister emotional chords, but the journey Erdrich takes Tookie, her main character on is one so fully flushed out and rooted in truth, but perhaps not so much “reality,” an honesty blossoms around impact vs. intention.
Due to some of the themes, I can’t offer a full throat recommendation and there were moments in the narrative that dragged or seemed superfluous, though in the end the novel worked for me. I highly recommend it if you have the emotional capacity to healthfully process the story as well as the various characters.
Happy Reading!
Hannah
