LaRose (novel)

Last updated
LaRose
LaRose by Louise Erdrich book cover.jpg
First edition cover, 2016
Author Louise Erdrich
Cover artistAza Erdrich
LanguageEnglish
Genre Novel
Publisher Harper
Publication date
10 May 2016
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages384 pp (First edition, hardcover)
ISBN 0-06-227702-2
OCLC 918994415
LC Class PS3555.R42 L37 2016
Website Official website

LaRose is a novel by the Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich, published in 2016 by HarperCollins. [1] The book received positive reviews from multiple publications, including The New York Times , [1] The Kansas City Star , [2] Winnipeg Free Press , [3] The Philadelphia Inquirer , [4] The Washington Post , [5] The A.V. Club , [6] The Sydney Morning Herald , [7] USA Today , [8] and The Chronicle Herald. [9] It won the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction. The novel features the same setting as Erdrich's 2012 novel The Round House. [3]

Contents

Plot summary

LaRose is set in North Dakota on an Ojibwe reservation in the "era of George W. Bush and 9/11." [3] The novel's protagonist is LaRose Iron, a young Native American boy. [3] His father, Landreaux Iron, accidentally shoots LaRose's best friend and neighbor, Dusty Ravich, also 5 years old, in a hunting accident, when the buck Landreaux had aimed at suddenly moved from in front of the boy.

Dusty's parents, Peter and Nola, are devastated by his death. To compensate for their loss, following an ancient custom, LaRose's parents, Landreaux and Emmaline, give him to Dusty's family after speaking with a priest and visiting a sweat lodge, to find a way to resolve their guilt.

While Peter and Nola are initially reluctant to accept LaRose into their family, perceiving it as an act of betrayal towards their own dead son, they soon warm to him. [5] LaRose later helps protect Nola as she deals with suicidal ideation. [2]

The story also introduces the stories of several of LaRose's ancestors, who were sent to residential schools and endured many traumatic experiences. [3] [4] The first person in the family to be named LaRose, an Ojibwe woman, was a young girl in 1839 [1] when her mother sold her at a trading post. [8] She is raped and later participates in the murder of her rapist. After her death, her remains are stolen by "white 'scientists.'" [1]

Critical reception

The book received primarily favorable reviews. [10] USA Today gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, [8] while The Sydney Morning Herald described it as a "page-turner," [7] The Kansas City Star described it as "brutally beautiful," [2] and The A.V. Club described it as "everything you want a novel to be." [6] LaRose was described by The Washington Post as a "masterly tale of grief and love" [5] and by The Philadelphia Inquirer described it as a "brilliant, subtle exploration of tragic histories." [4]

Awards and honors

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Erdrich</span> Native American author in Minnesota (born 1954)

Karen Louise Erdrich is a Native American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota, a federally recognized tribe of Ojibwe people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Patchett</span> American novelist and memoirist (born 1963)

Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023). The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

<i>Love Medicine</i> Novel by Louise Erdrich

Love Medicine is Louise Erdrich's debut novel, first published in 1984. Erdrich revised and expanded the novel in subsequent 1993 and 2009 editions. The book follows the lives of five interconnected Ojibwe families living on fictional reservations in Minnesota and North Dakota. The collection of short stories in the book spans six decades from the 1930s to the 1980s. Love Medicine garnered critical praise and won numerous awards, including the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award.

<i>Tracks</i> (novel) 1988 novel by Louise Erdrich

Tracks is a novel by Louise Erdrich, published in 1988. It is the third in a tetralogy of novels beginning with Love Medicine that explores the interrelated lives of four Anishinaabe families living on an Indian reservation near the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota. Within the saga, Tracks is earliest chronologically, providing the back-story of several characters such as Lulu Lamartine and Marie Kashpaw who become prominent in the other novels. As in many of her other novels, Erdrich employs the use of multiple first-person narratives to relate the events of the plot, alternating between Nanapush, a tribal patriarch, and Pauline, a young girl of mixed heritage.

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation is an independent charitable arts foundation that supports the art of fiction and encourages readers of all ages. It accomplishes this through a number of programs, including its flagship PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the PEN/Malamud Award for short fiction, and a number of educational and public literary programs. Since 1983 the Foundation's administration has been located in Washington, D.C.. The Foundation was established in 1980 by National Book Award winner Mary Lee Settle. Novelist Robert Stone served as the Chairman of the PEN/Faulkner Board of Directors for over thirty years beginning in 1982.

Native American literature is literature, both oral and written, produced by Native Americans in what is now the United States, from pre-Columbian times through to today. Famous authors include N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Simon Ortiz, Louise Erdrich, Gerald Vizenor, Joy Harjo, Sherman Alexie, D'Arcy McNickle, James Welch, Charles Eastman, Mourning Dove, Zitkala-Sa, John Rollin Ridge, Lynn Riggs, Hanay Geiogamah, William Apess, Samson Occom, and Stephen Graham Jones. Importantly, it is not "a" literature, but a set of literatures, since every tribe has its own cultural traditions. Since the 1960s, it has also become a significant field of literary studies, with academic journals, departments, and conferences devoted to the subject.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heid E. Erdrich</span> Native American poet and author from Minnesota

Heid E. Erdrich is a poet, editor, and writer. Erdrich is Ojibwe enrolled at Turtle Mountain.

<i>The Round House</i> (novel) 2012 novel by Louise Erdrich

The Round House is a novel by the American writer Louise Erdrich first published on October 2, 2012 by HarperCollins. The Round House is Erdrich's 14th novel and is part of her "justice trilogy" of novels, which includes The Plague of Doves released in 2008 and LaRose in 2016. The Round House follows the story of Joe Coutts, a 13-year-old boy who is frustrated with the poor investigation into his mother's gruesome attack and sets out to find his mother's attacker with the help of his best friends, Cappy, Angus, and Zack. Like most of Erdrich's other works, The Round House is set on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota.

<i>The Birchbark House</i> 1999 novel by Louise Erdrich

The Birchbark House is a 1999 indigenous juvenile realistic fiction novel by Louise Erdrich, and is the first book in a five book series known as The Birchbark series. The story follows the life of Omakayas and her Ojibwe community beginning in 1847 near present-day Lake Superior. The Birchbark House has received positive reviews and was a 1999 National Book Award Finalist for young people's fiction.

<i>The Game of Silence</i> 2005 novel by Louise Erdrich

The Game of Silence is a 2005 novel by Louise Erdrich. It is the second novel in "The Birchbark" series that began with The Birchbark House. The two novels both feature the family of the Ojibwe girl Omakayas.

Justine Ettler is an Australian author who is best known for her 1995 novel, The River Ophelia, which was shortlisted for the 1995 Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction - Horror Division - Best Novel. She is a seminal figure in Australian "grunge fiction" or "dirty realism" literature of the mid-1990s and was labelled 'The Empress of Grunge'. Her second published novel is Marilyn's Almost Terminal New York Adventure (1996) but technically it is her first novel as she wrote Marilyn's Almost Terminal New York Adventure novel before she wrote The River Ophelia. She has also worked as a literary reviewer for newspapers such as The Observer, The Sydney Morning Herald, a teacher, and academic.

Linda LeGarde Grover is an Anishinaabe novelist and short story writer. An enrolled member of the Bois Forte Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, she is a professor emeritus of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth, as well as a columnist for the Duluth News Tribune.

List of works by or about American author Louise Erdrich.

<i>Four Souls</i> (novel)

Four Souls (2004) is an entry in the Love Medicine series by Chippewa (Ojibwe) author Louise Erdrich. It was written after The Master Butcher’s Singing Club (2003) and before The Painted Drum (2005); however, the events of Four Souls take place after Tracks (1988). Four Souls follows Fleur Pillager, an Ojibwe woman, in her quest for revenge against the white man who stole her ancestral land. Fleur appears in many books in the series, and this novel takes place directly after her departure from the Little No Horse reservation at the end of Tracks. The novel is narrated by three characters, Nanapush, Polly Elizabeth, and Margaret, with Nanapush narrating all of the odd numbered chapters and Polly Elizabeth taking all but the last two even numbered chapters.

<i>The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse</i> 2001 novel by Louise Erdrich

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, first published in 2001, is a novel by author Louise Erdrich. The novel tells the story of Agnes DeWitt as Father Damien, the reverend who becomes part of the reservation community. Erdrich's narration alternates between Agnes’ early 20th-century memories and a series of interviews set in 1996 wherein another priest questions Damien about the possible canonization of Pauline Puyat.

<i>The Plague of Doves</i> 2008 novel by Louise Erdrich

The Plague of Doves is a 2008 New York Times bestseller and the first entry in a loosely-connected trilogy by Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich. The Plague of Doves follows the townsfolk of the fictional Pluto, North Dakota, who are plagued by a farming family's unsolved murder from generations prior. The novel incorporates Erdrich's multiple narrator trope that is present in other works including the Love Medicine series. Its sequel is the National Book Award winning novel The Round House. Erdrich concluded the "Justice" trilogy with LaRose in 2016.

<i>The Night Watchman</i> (novel) 2020 novel by Louise Erdrich

The Night Watchman is a novel by Louise Erdrich first published on March 3, 2020, by HarperCollins. The novel is set in the 1950s. This is Erdrich's sixth standalone novel following Future Home of the Living God. The novel was inspired by the life of Erdrich's grandfather who motivated and inspired other members of the Turtle Mountain Reservation to resist the Indian termination policies of the 1940s-1960s. The Night Watchman is the first novel that Erdrich has written that is set on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.

<i>Future Home of the Living God</i> 2017 novel by Louise Erdrich

Future Home of the Living God is a dystopian novel and work of speculative fiction by Louise Erdrich first published on November 14, 2017, by HarperCollins. The novel follows 26-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, an Ojibwe woman raised by white parents, who visits her birth mother's reservation just as the United States becomes increasingly totalitarian following a reversal of evolution.

<i>Chickadee</i> (novel) Novel by Louise Erdrich

Chickadee is a 2012 historical fiction novel by American author Louise Erdrich, the fourth book in The Birchbark House series. Moving the story fourteen years into the future, the novel follows Omakaya's twin sons, Chickadee and Makoons, as the family moves further into the Great Plains. When Chickadee is kidnapped, he embarks on a journey to reunite with his family against a backdrop of American westward expansion.

The Sentence is a 2021 novel by American author Louise Erdrich.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Gordon, Mary (2016-05-16). "'LaRose,' by Louise Erdrich". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2016-05-23.
  2. 1 2 3 "Louise Erdrich's 'LaRose' is a poignant tale of how one tragedy binds two families". kansascity. Retrieved 2016-05-23.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Medoro, Dana (21 May 2016). "Lovely LaRose". Winnipeg Free Press. Retrieved 2016-05-23.
  4. 1 2 3 "'LaRose' by Louise Erdrich: Brilliant, subtle exploration of tragic histories". Philly.com. Retrieved 2016-05-23.
  5. 1 2 3 Charles, Ron (2016-05-09). "Louise Erdrich's 'LaRose': A gun accident sets off a masterly tale of grief and love". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2016-05-23.
  6. 1 2 "Louise Erdrich's LaRose is everything you want a novel to be". www.avclub.com. 2016-05-09. Retrieved 2016-05-23.
  7. 1 2 "Louise Erdrich's LaRose is a page-turner that reflects her experience". The Sydney Morning Herald. 12 May 2016. Retrieved 2016-05-23.
  8. 1 2 3 "LaRose". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2016-05-23.
  9. "In LaRose, Erdrich looks at penance". The Chronicle Herald. 2016-05-15. Retrieved 2016-05-23.
  10. "Book Marks reviews of LaRose by Louise Erdrich". Book Marks. Retrieved 2021-07-27.
  11. "Louise Erdrich, Matthew Desmond Lead National Book Critics Circle Winners". NPR. March 17, 2017. Retrieved April 14, 2017.
  12. "2017 Winners". 14 October 2020.
  13. "The PEN/Faulkner Award | the PEN/Faulkner Foundation".