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A review by erine
LaRose by Louise Erdrich
4.0
This was a long, slow, dense read. I can’t tell you how many times I picked this up just to put it down again. Or read a few pages only to pick up something else. Dialogue was hopelessly entangled with description, with no punctuation to distinguish it. The story begins with the accidental death of a five year old, then continues with grief, substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts. There are timeline interruptions for deeply sad tales of abandonment and haunting, boarding schools that tried to “kill the Indian” and save the human. The timeline continues with teenage sexual abuse, various affairs, and bitter woes.
And yet, for all that, I still enjoyed this. The book’s unflinching take on reality and its difficulties, small triumphs, large tragedies, the spiderwebs of our relationships, and the ways we make the world bearable for each other was — not uplifting, yet not depressing — it was incredibly SOLID. This story was just incredibly real.
The long backstory of Landreaux and Romeo was also heart wrenching. Their friendship turned to indifference and yet still there is care between them: Landreaux raises Romeo’s son Hollis. Even Romeo’s misplaced vengeance, which almost leads to Peter killing Landreaux outright, is foiled by LaRose himself and things turn out ok.
My 2020 pandemic and election-ravaged attention span was not a fan of this book. But the themes of community and caring for others made it a worthwhile struggle.
And yet, for all that, I still enjoyed this. The book’s unflinching take on reality and its difficulties, small triumphs, large tragedies, the spiderwebs of our relationships, and the ways we make the world bearable for each other was — not uplifting, yet not depressing — it was incredibly SOLID. This story was just incredibly real.
Spoiler
It was heartbreaking and yet also heartwarming to see how Maggie and LaRose came together to support their suicidal mother. The question of who is to blame for an accident permeates the entire story, along with how to heal that tragedy and whether revenge is ever worth it. And yet many of the players in the story grow and develop in positive directions.The long backstory of Landreaux and Romeo was also heart wrenching. Their friendship turned to indifference and yet still there is care between them: Landreaux raises Romeo’s son Hollis. Even Romeo’s misplaced vengeance, which almost leads to Peter killing Landreaux outright, is foiled by LaRose himself and things turn out ok.
My 2020 pandemic and election-ravaged attention span was not a fan of this book. But the themes of community and caring for others made it a worthwhile struggle.