LaRose

Having accidentally killed his neighbors' young son, a man offers in exchange his own boy, LaRose. This ancient act of tribal justice entwines these already tragically connected families in unanticipated ways. The Ravich and Iron families are clearly as alive to Erdrich as the ghosts with whom the mystical LaRose communes. As narrator, Erdrich inhabits them--dark, light, comic, confused--with apparent effortlessness. She delivers with equal ease mythic stories, slapstick nursing home exchanges, teen angst, and all-consuming grief. She even gives a rousing volleyball play-by-play with significance well beyond the game on the court. To keep the emotions she, as author, has created, Erdrich, as narrator, digs deep. LAROSE is a winning story that will leave listeners cheering. K.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

July 25, 2016
Novelist extraordinaire Erdrich proves she is also a gifted voice actor in the audio edition of her latest novel. She reads with a soft but authoritative voice that works so well with her subject matter—the lives of contemporary Ojibwe in North Dakota torn between their modern ideas and sensibilities and the traditions of their ancestors. Erdrich reads fluently, at a conversational pace that easily draws listeners in. As in The Round House, the story explores the quest for justice and the thirst for retribution. Landreaux Iron, an Ojibwe man, accidentally shoots and kills Dusty, the five-year-old son of his best friend, who is not a member of the tribe. In his anguish, Landreaux turns to an Ojibwe tradition that holds that he must give his own son, LaRose, to Dusty’s parents. Erdrich’s reading captures the complex emotions of both sets of mothers and fathers and each of their children; of the lonely, jealous alcoholic who years ago gave his son to the Iron family because he couldn’t raise him; and of the local priest painfully in love with LaRose’s mother. Erdrich’s narration adds depth to this contemporary story intertwined with the long history of the LaRose name and Ojibwe culture. A Harper hardcover.

Starred review from January 11, 2016
Erdrich spins a powerful, resonant story with masterly finesse. As in The Round House, she explores the quest for justice and the thirst for retribution. Again, the settingâa North Dakota Ojibwe reservation and a nearby townâadds complexity to the plot. Landreaux Iron, an Ojibwe man, accidentally shoots and kills the five-year-old son of his best friend, farmer Peter Ravich, who is not a member of the tribe. After a wrenching session with his Catholic priest, Father Travis, and a soul-searching prayer in a sweat lodge, Landreaux gives his own five-year-old son, LaRose, to grieving Peter and his wife, Nola, who is half-sister to Landreaux's own wife, Emmaline. In the years that follow, LaRose becomes a bridge between his two families. He also accesses powers that have distinguished his namesakes in previous generations, when LaRose was "a name both innocent and powerful, and had belonged to the family's healers." Erdrich introduces this mystical element seamlessly, in the same way that LaRose and other Ojibwes recognize and communicate with "the active presence of the spirit world." The magical aspects are lightened by scenes of everyday life: old ladies in an assisted-living home squabble about sex; teenage girls create their own homemade beauty spa. Erdrich raises suspense by introducing another, related act of retribution, culminating in a memorable and satisfying ending.