The Sentence

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I would also have to say that reading this novel - which I largely enjoyed - I noted firstly that (to me like so many literary American novels) the world outside the US barely exists (other interestingly than in the large number of non-American authors mentioned) and secondly that the novel seemed to me very American - almost as if I was slightly excluded from what it took for granted. Tookie is released from prison after years of incarceration for naively recovering the corpse of her friend’s husband. Except the body carried something valuable to some but illegal – which was cocaine. Not able to provide any meaningful defence Tookie is imprisoned where she ignites her passion for books and literature. After many unsuccessful appeals, Tookie is finally freed, marries Pollux, and sets up a bookshop. However, the bookshop is haunted by the ghostly presence of one of its former customers, Flora who is looking for help and understanding which is to be found in a ‘sentence’. Cornwell, Lisa (August 17, 2014). "writer louise erdrich wins ohio peace prize". TwinCities.com. Associated Press . Retrieved August 18, 2014. Observations on life as a native American in modern America - and in particular on interactions with non-indigenous people, including those who believe firmly they are not just empathetic to your plight but even (like Flora) somehow are part of it. What Tookie calls herself is another matter. Because Flora is not the first of Tookie’s ghosts. She is haunted by her mother’s addiction and death, haunted by a misspent youth and her time in prison, and though she is resilient, she is haunted by the idea that there is something flawed about her — that if there is a way to screw something up, she’ll find it.

I feel quite conflicted over The Sentence. Although I loved the first half of this novel I found the latter to be boring and somewhat disjointed. While I’m sure many will be able to love everything about this book I wish it hadn’t quite tried to juggle so many different themes and genres. The proximity of events (which keep coming) also keeps the book from becoming too reflective -- but also gives it an at times surface-skim-like feel, as much as Erdrich seeks to ground it in Tookie. The plot threads are numerous and so varied they shouldn’t work together but somehow they do, which makes this such an interesting and absorbing book. Except for one element. United States Artists awards Louise Erdrich 2022 Berresford Prize". ICT News. November 14, 2022 . Retrieved December 29, 2022.

Media Reviews

The Sentence: It's such an unassuming title (and one that sounds like it belongs to a writing manual); but, Louise Erdrich's latest is a deceptively big novel, various in its storytelling styles; ambitious in its immediacy. LE: I write first drafts in longhand. I don’t keep one book or journal; I mostly scrawl on various scraps of notebook paper scattered throughout the house.

AP Literature: Titles from Free Response Questions since 1971". Mseffie.com. May 13, 2013. Archived from the original on November 30, 2014 . Retrieved October 23, 2013. Not many authors could include all the things Erdrich does in this novel and make it work. A haunting, a bookstore, COVID, motherhood, George Floyd’s death and the ensuing protests, marriage, quarantine, and more.” We’re in the midst of the first wave of pandemic novels, with likely more to come as time goes on. How do you feel about this one? Some people spent their pandemic confinement learning a new language, refining their cooking skills, increasing their step count or gardening. Louise Erdrich spent the time writing a novel. Specifically, she wrote a ghost story, “The Sentence,” and the further you read in this engaging account of what happens after a loyal bookstore patron dies and her ghost refuses to leave the store she loved, the more apt Erdrich’s choice of genre seems. Set mostly in the year 2020, which itself came to seem haunted as Covid spread and the deaths piled up, this novel restores to us all the messy detail of an almost amnesiac time when, worn down and exhausted, “we skied weightlessly through the days as if they were a landscape of repeating features.” An ideal boostore-worker, Tookie is obsessed with books, and enthusiastic about helping people find the right ones: "I would rescue him with books", she says about one customer, and even if she knows books aren't always the answer, they are certainly her main go-to.

Beyond the Book

Louise Erdrich, author of LaRose, talks about her love of books". YouTube. Archived from the original on November 18, 2021 . Retrieved June 25, 2020. A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism. Mercifully released after 10 years, Tookie, who's Native American, lands a job at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis — the very same independent bookstore that Louise Erdrich owns in real life. Erdrich herself makes sporadic appearances here, but she's by no means the most jarring presence in the bookstore, as Tookie ominously tells us: "In November 2019, death took one of my most annoying customers. But she did not disappear."

On top of being a creative clever ghost-style-examination of 2019 and 2020, it’s also an impressive Louise Erdrich has made a career writing about the contemporary world in light of the history of indigenous people, how the past continues to impact the present. One might even say to haunt it. The hauntings in The Sentence continue that focus, but add a more immediate presence.

Dartmouth 2009 Honorary Degree Recipient Louise Erdrich '76 (Doctor of Letters)". Dartmouth.edu. June 7, 2010. Archived from the original on August 19, 2014 . Retrieved October 23, 2013. Pulitzer Prize: 2021 Winners List". The New York Times. June 11, 2021. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved June 14, 2021. It becomes a challenge, figuring out how to cope with this unwanted visitor. Why was she there, in the bookstore in particular, and what would it take to get her to leave? Flora had been found with an open book, a very old journal, The Sentence: An Indian Captivity 1862-1883. The book seems to be implicated in Flora’s passing. Tookie tries to figure out if the book had a role to play in Flora’s death. There might be a perilous sentence in the book. Louise” is the bookstore owner and also an author, perhaps “the author” of the novel. It seems very meta. Is the book meant to be somewhat autobiographical?