The Round House: A Novel

The Round House: A Novel

The Round House won the National Book Award for fiction.One of the most revered novelists of our time-a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life-Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves with The Round House, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family.Riveting and suspenseful, arguably the most accessible novel to date from the creator of Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, Erdrich?s The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece of literary fiction-at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.Review?Wise and suspenseful?Erdrich?s voice as well as her powers of insight and imagination fully infuse this novel?She writes so perceptively and brilliantly about the adolescent passion for justice that one is transported northward to her home territory.? (Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune)?Erdrich has given us a multitude of narrative voices and stories. Never before has she given us a novel with a single narrative voice so smart, rich and full of surprises as she has in The Round House?and, I would argue, her best so far.? (NPR/All Thing's Considered)?THE ROUND HOUSE is filled with stunning language that recalls shades of Faulkner, Garc? M?quez and Toni Morrison. Deeply moving, this novel ranks among Erdrich?s best work, and it is impossible to forget.? (USA Today)?Emotionally compelling?Joe is an incredibly endearing narrator, full of urgency and radiant candor?the story he tells transforms a sad, isolated crime into a revelation about how maturity alters our relationship with our parents, delivering us into new kinds of love and pain.? (Ron Charles, Washington Post)?The novel showcases her [Erdrich?s] extraordinary ability to delineate the ties of love, resentment, need, duty and sympathy that bind families together?[a] powerful novel.? (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)?A gripping mystery with a moral twist: Revenge might be the harshest punishment, but only for the victims. A-? (Entertainment Weekly)?Moving, complex, and surprisingly uplifting?likely to be dubbed the Native American TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD? (Parade, Fall's Best Books)?Erdrich never shields the reader or Joe from the truth?She writes simply, without flourish.? (Philadelphia Inquirer)?An artfully balanced mystery, thriller and coming-of-age story?this novel will have you reading at warp speed to see what happens next.? (Minneapolis Star Tribune)?Erdrich?s bittersweet contemplation of love and friendship, morality and generativity?result in a tender, tough coming-of-age tale.? (Cleveland Plain Dealer)From the Back CoverWashington Post Best Book of the YearNew York Times Notable BookOne Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface because Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.While his father, a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.About the AuthorLouise Erdrich is the author of f