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Summary and Reviews of The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

The Mighty Red

A Novel

by Louise Erdrich
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  • Oct 1, 2024, 384 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

In this stunning novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich tells a story of love, natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people's lives.

History is a flood. The mighty red ...

In Argus, North Dakota, a collection of people revolve around a fraught wedding. 

Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can't read her future but seems to resolve his. 

Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Kismet. He's determined to steal her and is eager to be a home wrecker.  

Kismet's mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary's family, and on her nightly runs, tunes into the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future, her daughter's and her own.

Human time, deep time, Red River time, the half-life of herbicides and pesticides, and the elegance of time represented in fracking core samples from unimaginable depths, is set against the speed of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and the sudden economic meltdown of 2008-2009. How much does a dress cost? A used car? A package of cinnamon rolls? Can you see the shape of your soul in the everchanging clouds? Your personal salvation in the giant expanse of sky? These are the questions the people of the Red River Valley of the North wrestle with every day.

The Mighty Red is a novel of tender humor, disturbance, and hallucinatory mourning. It is about on-the-job pains and immeasurable satisfactions, a turbulent landscape, and eating the native weeds growing in your backyard. It is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. It is about a starkly beautiful prairie community whose members must cope with devastating consequences as powerful forces upend them. As with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor.

A new novel by Louise Erdrich is a major literary event; gorgeous and heartrending, The Mighty Red is a triumph.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Erdrich expertly switches between characters' perspectives and pulls the reader into their inner lives; the effect is never disorienting, but rather provides a 360-degree view of this insular community and its lightly magical realist world. As the tension builds, the reader waits on edge of her seat for the characters to finally face their traumas, whether by confronting what happened the night of the tragedy or by reflecting on even earlier misfortunes and mistakes that led them to their current lives...continued

Full Review Members Only (648 words)

(Reviewed by Rose Rankin).

Media Reviews

BookPage
The Mighty Red might just be a new American classic.

Boston Globe
Erdrich remains one of the world's literary giants.

Literary Hub
A new novel from Louise Erdrich—winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, if you didn't know—is always something to celebrate... Start clearing off space on your bedside table now.

Newsday
Erdrich is back with another brilliant, funny, profound story of people and place, earth and spirit.

Oprah Daily
In the hands of this master storyteller, everything is effortlessly connected... . Fearlessly depicting the toughest losses and darkest threats, Erdrich always finds hope.

People
[A] heart-wrenching story of how human lives are susceptible to nature's impact.

Time Magazine
[A] captivating multigenerational tale set amid the 2008 financial crisis.

Town and Country
[A]nother must-read from the acclaimed author...a moving story of mothers and daughters set amid the economic collapse and the devastating impacts of industrial farming.

New York Times
A love triangle is at the heart of this novel, set against the backdrop of a beet farm in North Dakota during the economic meltdown of 2008-2009. It's as much about the financial crash and environmental destruction as it is about the people most impacted by and vulnerable to these devastations.

Washington Post
Erdrich's career is one of the post distinguished in contemporary literature. The Post's Ron Charles described it as 'one powerful book after another' about the experiences of Native Americans. In The Mighty Red, she offers a characteristic tapestry of stories about people living along the Red River Valley of North Dakota.

Booklist
[A] finely woven tale of anguish and desire, crimes and healing. With irresistible characters, dramatic predicaments, crisp wit, gorgeously rendered settings, striking ecological facts, and a cosmic dimension, Erdrich's latest tale of the plains reverberates with arresting revelations.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
[A] deft, almost winsome novel...Erdrich's writing feels both effortless and wise...In this tender and capacious story, love and tragedy mingle along the river and into the world.

Library Journal (starred review)
While the novel touches on tragedy, it also includes scenes of sheer comedic delight. No one describes a book-group meeting better than Erdrich. Pulitzer Price and National Book Award winner Erdrich (The Sentence) yet again displays her storytelling skills.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A captivating tale of love and everyday life amid environmental upheaval and the 2008 financial crisis...Erdrich excels at the slow simmer, and once again she delivers a deliciously seductive masterwork.

Reader Reviews

Fiesty Techie

A Heartfelt Journey Through Love and Resilience in The Mighty Red
Louise Erdrich's The Mighty Red is a poignant exploration of love, loss, and the complexities of rural life in North Dakota. Set against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crisis, the novel intricately weaves together the lives of its characters—...   Read More

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Beyond the Book



The Dangers of Roundup Ready Seeds

In Louise Erdrich's novel The Mighty Red, a rural community in North Dakota grapples with common problems facing agricultural centers—the bankruptcy of small farms and resulting consolidation into mega-farms; job loss and depopulation; and increasingly brittle economies and ecosystems damaged by monoculture.

Man in protective equipment spraying pesticides on a farm In Erdrich's story, the monoculture crop is sugar beets, one of the most nutrient-poor crops on the market. The largest farm in town has also moved to genetically modified Roundup Ready seeds, meaning their crops can be doused repeatedly with Roundup, Monsanto's trade name for the herbicide glyphosate. Roundup is supposed to kill the weeds competing with the beets; the problem is that the chemicals kill all other insect and...

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Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

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