daababes.blogg.se

Tookie is the only one of them who has failed to come to terms with her past and her failure to do so endangers the life she has built since leaving prison.ĭespite the heavy subject matter, The Sentence is not a heavy book. Erdrich uses each of her character’s individual stories of past trauma and loss to describe their varied and nuanced responses to the events of 2020. There are times when it seems like the events of 2020 will take over the novel, but Erdrich always brings the action back to the bookstore, its employees, and to Tookie. The trauma caused by the murder of George Floyd, the subsequent protests, and the COVID-19 pandemic threaten to spin her life out of control. When one of Tookie’s most irritating customers dies and begins to haunt the bookstore her life is thrown out of balance. Her life is comfortable and happy, but she does not trust herself to keep things that way. She loves books, she loves her job, and she loves her husband. Readers are privy to Tookie’s thoughts as she navigates her relationships with her husband Pollux, his niece who moves in with them, her quirky, sometimes helpful coworkers, the demanding customers who rely on her for book recommendations, and a ghost. She is a voracious reader who gets a job in the bookstore through one of her old teachers who kept in touch while Tookie was in prison. Tookie is an excon and recovering drug addict who is married to the retired Potawatamie cop who arrested her and sent her to prison. The plot of The Sentence focuses on an Ojibwe woman named Tookie through whom Erdrich tells the story. Those themes serve as the framework of The Sentence. They find solace and peace in their heritage, books, and in each other.Įrdrich, who won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Night Watchman, uses her books to explore the struggles of Native Americans past and present and to celebrate Native American culture.

Erdrich was deeply affected by the murder of George Floyd and confused and terrified by the COVID-19 pandemic and so are the very bookish women who work in the bookstore. Erdrich owns a bookstore that specializes in Native American books and art, the novel is set in a bookstore that specializes in Native American books and art. Erdrich lives in Minneapolis, the novel is set in Minneapolis. Readers familiar with Louise Erdrich’s biography will quickly notice the similarities between her life and the details of her new novel The Sentence.