The Sentence: A Novel

I have read most of Louise Erdrich's books, and am an unabashed fan. The Sentence is right up there with her best, with a colorful and unique cast of characters, insight and sensitivity into indigenous culture and history, and a spellbinding set of interwoven stories revolving around central character Tookie. There are also autobiographical aspects of this book, as Tookie works in a bookstore specializing in an indigenous bookstore owned by a woman named Louise. Unlike most of Erdrich's books, this one is set firmly in the present, in the midst of George Floyd's murder and the ensuing riots, and the covid pandemic: how to keep the bookstore open, and to keep employees and customers safe, how to protect your household yet support your people and values. Meanwhile, the bookstore becomes haunted by a former customer who won't stay dead, and who threatens Tookie. Woven in is Tookie's complicated love story and history with her husband, Pollux, a retired policeman who arrested Tookie years earlier, resulting in a sentence that changed her life. I could not put down this book, and could relate to many of the characters in spite of our very different backgrounds and lives. This, perhaps, is Erdrich's genius - stories and characters that so many of us can relate to, learn from, and care about. I recommend this book very highly, and hope it becomes required reading for high school and college classes. A masterwork.

This book was a book group selection. So the title is enticing, I wouldn’t have picked it up to read it. It’s set in a bookstore, a small town bookstore in Minnesota. The staff are quirky and fun. They’re also very serious and intense people. But full of faith in the universe. I liked them. I don’t know if this is a weird pool though but the chairs hurt. The chairs that were available are either full sun or no sun outside. They have a little bit of sun, but you have to go all the way both corners you know to get in the pool and and that when you’re like in behind the island over there and then you take like go through a little narrow passageway, so I finally settled on here go to work I guess I particularly love the protagonist- she’s my kind of girl.

Her husband Pollux is a hero of sorts to me. He is a native American, a city Indian, but one who found his path to being an Indian through an uncle, who trained him in the ways of his people. He keeps his community together through his rituals and his love. His daughter Hetty, comes home, bringing a baby boy with her just before the COVID-19 pandemic hits. She stays with her dad and stepmother for the next year or so and they help care for the baby. After years together, they have become a family because of Jarvis, the baby. it turns out to be a thing of beauty. Interestingly, it might have happened without the pandemic but Covid seals their fate together. They are meant to be a family.

I think the book is great because it focuses on the people experiencing the turmoil of 2020. Doesn’t focus on the illness. It doesn’t focus on the terrible things happening in our communities with police violence, or the subsequent demonstrations that followed. Well, it does talk about those things, but through the eyes of people experiencing them, particularly the Native American community.

There is also a ghost in the story. A woman who wanted so badly to be a native American, that she created a whole history for herself and her family. This is not quite a spoiler alert, but learning that she is not only not Native American. She finds that her ancestors were fairly horrible people. And miss treated badly the native people that she loves

Overall this is a tender book. A little hard to read, but fascinating, and it goes so quickly. When it ended I just wanted to continue.

Here’s how much I enjoyed The Sentence: I found myself thinking so much about Tookie, Pollux, Hetta, Jarvis, Asema, Flora, jingle dresses, and fry bread that I downloaded the Audible version too. Read by the author, the “spoken word” was particularly meaningful, even fun at times, because of Erdrich’s voice inflection, speech rhythm, and emphasis she placed on certain passages. After listening, I often went back to the Kindle version to reread entire sections, especially those relating to the George Floyd protests, bookstore experiences with Flora, and several about nature, Pollux, and Jarvis.

Because of having read several of Erdrich’s books, I was prepared for the first chapter. Like the others, it was a bit unsettling and set the reader up for what was to follow. Tookie, the main character, agreed to do a favor for a friend (big mistake) and ended up serving time in prison. She’s released early and marries the man who arrested her, Pollux. They’re Native Americans living in Minnesota who seem to be living somewhat ordinary lives and then Wham! There’s Covid, a Presidential election, the murder of George Floyd, and protests relating to his death. About this time, Pollux’s daughter Hetta and her newborn come to live with them for a while. Life happens.

Here are a few of the things I particularly liked about The Sentence: • Experiencing these major events through the perspective of Tookie and others increased my insight about other people’s struggles especially those of color. “Indian after Indian and Black after Black and brown after brown person…. • There’s some backstory, but for the most part, the action of the novel takes place within a year’s time. Plus, every reader could identify with one or all of the major themes and/or happenings. Is there anyone who hasn’t been touched by COVID-19 in some way? • I learned some new words and terms, i.e., deliquesce and the difference between All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. I also learned more about Native American culture. • Her description of people, places, and things: “I’m a little sad when the shapes of the trees are revealed.” And how about another short phrase: “There was the residue of joy in their tattered yard.” I’ve seen yards like that. • My consciousness was raised. I love reading novels in which I learn something. I’d heard of Philando Castile, but not Zachary Bearheels, Bad River Ojibwe, Charles Lone Eagle, or Jason Pero (among others). • The relationships and ties that bind people to one another, both past and present, the material world and the spirit world. There’s even a ghost involved, Flora. Or was she a spirit--as Pollux might think?

Things I dislike about The Sentence: 0, nada, nothing. I liked everything. I hope you will, too.

If you’re in the mood for something quirky and darkly humorous, you will find this novel entertaining. You’ll get insight into how some Indigenous people cope with the obstacles of modern living without losing their ties to the past and their culture. The main character, Tookie, is a Native American woman starting her life after being released from serving a ten-year prison sentence. Tookie is married to the man, an ex-tribal police officer, who sent her to prison in the first place. He arrested Tookie when she was caught transporting heroin taped to a dead body. Tookie’s best friend had involved Tookie in a highly illegal caper. She had been set up. Jail gives Tookie time to develop a voracious reading habit. She gets out and finds the tribal police officer waiting for her. Tookie’s former teacher works at an independent bookstore and helps her get a job there. The bookstore sells everything but specializes in Indigenous authors. At last, Tookie has found her element and is very skilled at placing just the right book in just the right reader’s hands. One of her favorite and, at the same time, most irritating customers is Flora, a sixty-ish woman who is described as a Native American “wannabe.” If there’s an Indigenous festival, Flora knows about it; if there’s a lecture on Native American folklore, Flora has the tickets. She even fosters young Indigenous runaways. Flora is at the bookstore almost daily. When Flora misses several days, Tookie learns that Flora has died suddenly. That doesn’t stop Flora, however. Five days after Flora dies, Tookie hears her unique footsteps walking in the book aisles. She hears Flora’s bracelets jangling and the swish of her clothes. This is the beginning of Flora’s haunting of the bookstore. At night when the bookstore is closed, Flora rearranges stray papers. She leaves brown paper hand towels all over the bathroom floor. When Tookie opens up in the morning, she doesn’t know what mess will greet her. At first, Flora only makes her presence known to Tookie but soon makes the co-workers aware of her existence. Tookie concludes that Flora is at the bookstore because she’s looking for a book that Tookie has in her possession. This is a book that Tookie buried because she had a near-death experience while reading it. Tookie worries that she is beginning to lose her mind. This story had me engaged immediately. It’s not a typical solve-the-mystery type read. While I laughed at some of the situations Tookie was dragged into; I found she was a sympathetic character just trying to live her best life. The writing is superb. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys ghost stories, reads Native American authors, and likes to haunt bookstores.

Louise Erdrich is one of if not my favorite writer. That being said, let me tell you that this book was a five-star read and will definitely be on the list of my favorite books of 2022.

In this novel we follow Tookie, an indigenous woman who makes a dumb mistake and ends up going to prison. She is sentenced to 60 years. Her crime involves a dead body and transporting it across state lines but we get the feel right off the bat that Tookie is not a criminal, she is not a bad person, she was simply naive and was trying to help a friend.

Everybody seems shocked by her crime and sentencing, only Tookie does not seem surprised. “I was on the wrong side of the statistics. Native Americans are the most oversentenced people currently imprisoned”. While in prison, Tookie reads as much as she can. Books become her salvation.

But because of her tribe’s defense lawyer, her sentence is commuted and she is released from prison. Tookie then starts working at a local bookstore in Minneapolis, whose owner is a woman named Louise, and tries to rebuild her life. Erdrich lives in Minneapolis and also owns a bookstore much like the one in this novel.

One of the customers of the bookstore is a white woman, who claims Native heritage, named Flora. But Flora suddenly passes away and her ghost refuses to leave the bookstore. That sort of sets off the ghost story in the book. But The Sentence is much more than just about an Indigenous woman or a haunted bookstore. It reflects on the city’s upheaval in 2020 amid the pandemic and the police killing of George Floyd.

I loved how Erdrich portrayed the feeling of confusion at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, how scary it was when nobody knew exactly how it was transmitted, how it would change our lives. And in the middle of the pandemic, her city — and the whole country — is hammered by the terrible death of Jorge Floyd by the police, and with the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted everywhere.

Will these events hunt us just like Flora haunted Tookie at the bookstore? This story takes you to so many unexpected places, I absolutely adored it. I am certain Louise Erdrich can write about everything under the sun. Her prose is absurdly beautiful. I also loved the book recommendations throughout the book and the list of books she provides at the end of the story.

The Sentence has a little bit of everything: real issues, ghost story, mystery, a bookstore and book lovers. It is also on the longlist of the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction. I hope it wins. I highly recommend this book.

Tookie, a Native American woman living in Minneapolis, is arrested for stealing a corpse. Plus, said corpse had crack cocaine hidden in his armpits. After ten years in prison reading voraciously, Tookie lands a job at an independent bookstore and marries her arresting officer, Pollux. Then her most annoying customer, Flora, who wishes that she herself were Native American, dies. All is well, but things have to start going awry or we don’t have a story worth telling. Flora’s ghost haunts the bookstore, George Floyd is murdered, and Covid-19 causes life as we know it to grind to a halt. Then there’s the double meaning of the title. First, Tookie has to endure a prison sentence, and Flora seems to be serving a sentence of being trapped between the land of the living and the afterlife. On the other hand, this book is largely about books, and Tookie believes that a particular sentence in a book killed Flora when she read it. As with all Erdrich novels, this one serves up a heavy dose of fascinating Native American beliefs and traditions, including how to evict a ghost. Erdrich also inhabits her own book here, as the writer who owns the bookstore. I love how she describes herself and hope that her real-life bookstore is as welcoming and full of warmth as the one in this novel. What ghost would not want to reside there?

Another great book which imparts some Native lore and insights into their struggles. Mostly this book is a tribute to books. The main character works in a bookstore, which happens to be the real bookstore owned by the author. Many books are mentioned throughout the story and a list of books is at the end.

The bookstore is haunted by the ghost of one of the regular patrons after she dies. The story is about that haunting, but also how we are haunted by things done to us and things we did. How do we deal with pain and grief and guilt and move forward?

The story gets a bit scattered. It covers events during Covid and the Minneapolis riots after the killing of George Floyd. But overall it’s a good read.

Louise Erdrich came out of the gate running with The Sentence and I was neck and neck with her and then something happened. I don’t really know what. The book just somehow got off course.

In fact, if I was asked what this book was about I am not sure I could answer. Relationships? Native American customs? The pandemic? The George Floyd tragedy through the eyes of Indigenous people? Ghosts? Or all of the above with a love story about books running through it?

This is not to say Erdrich doesn’t write beautifully and precisely. Nothing beats her description of holding her grandson, Jarvis, for the first time. Or that her characters are not well drawn. Or that some of the mini-plots weren’t of interest. Or that she is not just plain excellent at writing funny, witty lines. It is just that as a whole there was not enough of a story to propel me forward except for the fact that I was facilitating our book club discussion so was forced to finish it. Which led me to start flipping ahead when the ghost showed up (always a bad sign). And I never missed a thing.

There were definitely some profound passages that made me pause and ponder - which is a good thing right? But some were also puzzling. Like when the main character, Tookie, a recovering drug addict turn book addict, begins to wax eloquently about how transparent some books are and then rifts on (criticizes) books by Elena Ferrante and Kent Ted Krueger. Really? This Tender Land? Are you kidding me?

This graph reminded me of those uncomfortable moments when someone with ADHD blurts out an inappropriate comment in the middle of a discussion. Even if it is funny or interesting there is this sense of - where is that coming from? In the case of these critical comments of her peers - it was definitely not something that Tookie would have been thinking no less saying. The character of Louise, who, like Louise Erdrich, is an author and book owner? Yes. Louise the author of the book? Yes. And talk about thinly disguised devices. Way to sneak in a deep dig at two brilliant writers. And blame the judgment on the main character in the book and not the creator of the character. Clever.

I gave The Sentence a 3.25. It is undeniably well crafted but there are two parts to a book - the writing and the story. And the story was lacking. I couldn’t stay engaged. The book could not possibly be carried by the writing. (Which leads me to the question - who is editing her books? Or has she become so big that she has no one with the guts to tell her the truth about this book?) Readers demand more. Life is too short to have to force yourself to finish a book - especially when you are the book club facilitator.

(Disclaimer - I have never written a book and I know it must be incredibly difficult. So regardless of what I think of it - there is all praise for any dedication to this discipline.)

Yes, my headline was less than glowing, but now that I have your attention, let me elaborate. I usually love novels about haunted or enchanted bookstores, but this one didn't excite me at all. That's because this was just one of several themes running through the book, and what's the chance that I wouldn't like any of these additional themes? Well, apparently, the chance was 100%. Has that ever happened before? Absolutely not! You can draw your own conclusions.