The Plague of Doves - Softcover

Erdrich, Louise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061562750 ISBN 13: 9780061562754

Publisher: Harperluxe, 2008

Synopsis

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, The Plague of Doves--the first part of a loose trilogy that includes the National Book Award-winning The Round House and LaRose--is a gripping novel about a long-unsolved crime in a small North Dakota town and how, years later, the consequences are still being felt by the community and a nearby Native American reservation.

Though generations have passed, the town of Pluto continues to be haunted by the murder of a farm family. Evelina Harp--part Ojibwe, part white--is an ambitious young girl whose grandfather, a repository of family and tribal history, harbors knowledge of the violent past. And Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, who bears witness, understands the weight of historical injustice better than anyone. Through the distinct and winning voices of three unforgettable narrators, the collective stories of two interwoven communities ultimately come together to reveal a final wrenching truth.

Bestselling author Louise Erdrich delves into the fraught waters of historical injustice and the impact of secrets kept too long.

About this title

Review:

"Erdrich is in top form here..."--Time Out New York

"One can only marvel...at Erdrich's amazing ability to do what so few of us can - shape words into phrases and sentences of incomparable beauty that, then, pour forth a mesmerizing story."--USA Today

"Erdrich has demonstrated a rare ability to create vibrant, wholly original characters and to describe nature in a prose so lyrical it becomes poetry. 'The Plague of Doves' is proof that she has yet to exhaust her powerful magic."--Hartford Courant

"Wholly felt and exquisitely rendered tales of memory and magic...an intricate tapestry that deeply satisfies the mind, the heart, and the spirit."--Pam Houston, O, The Oprah Magazine

"Erdrich's latest novel...is so natural you forget there's a writer behind it...Instantly gripping..."--Marie Claire

"An intricate tale of heartbreak and humor...wondrous novel...What marks these stories...is what has always set Erdrich apart and made her work seem miraculous: the jostling of pathos and comedy...Sit down and listen carefully."--Washington Post Book World

"[Erdrich's] accomplishment in these pages is Tolstoy-like: to render human particularity so meticulously and with such fierce passion as to convey the great, glittering movement of time."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Erdrich deftly weaves past and present, and her literary territory is as intricate as Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County."--MORE Magazine

"To read Louise Erdrich's thunderous new novel is to leap headlong into the fiery imagination of a master storyteller...a rich, colorful mosaic of tales that twist and turn for decades..."--Miami Herald

"The stories told by [Erdrich's] characters offer pleasures of language, of humor, of sheer narrative momentum, that shine even in the darkest moments of the book."--Boston Globe

From the Back Cover:

Louise Erdrich's mesmerizing new novel, her first in almost three years, centers on a compelling mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives.

Evelina Harp is a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, who is prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. Nobody understands the weight of historical injustice better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a thoughtful mixed blood who witnesses the lives of those who appear before him, and whose own love life reflects the entire history of the territory. In distinct and winning voices, Erdrich's narrators unravel the stories of different generations and families in this corner of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by history, the two communities' collective stories finally come together in a wrenching truth revealed in the novel's final pages.

The Plague of Doves is one of the major achievements of Louise Erdrich's considerable oeuvre, a quintessentially American story and the most complex and original of her books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harperluxe
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0061562750
• ISBN 13: 9780061562754
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 494