The Sentence - Louise Erdrich

The Sentence

By Louise Erdrich

  • Release Date: 2021-11-09
  • Genre: Literary Fiction
Score: 4
4
From 391 Ratings

Description

"Dazzling. . . . A hard-won love letter to readers and to booksellers, as well as a compelling story about how we cope with pain and fear, injustice and illness. One good way is to press a beloved book into another's hands. Read The Sentence and then do just that."—USA Today, Four Stars

In this New York Times bestselling novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors.

Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading "with murderous attention," must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written. 

Reviews

  • The Sentence

    1
    By cat5115&
    This book is such a hard read and so confusing. So hard to pick up to read. I really hated this book.
  • incredible..

    5
    By vikingdreamlass
    everything about this book.
  • The Sentence, Louise Erdrich

    5
    By Lefty Marion
    An amazing read covering the present and centering the past giving us lots of wisdom to take with us into the future!
  • The Sentence

    5
    By Jan in Denver
    This book blends cultures and cosmoses artfully yet with a certain innocence. I’ll read it again to get all of the nuance I may have missed!
  • Always a great reading experience

    5
    By Ernie_in_2012
    For me Louise Erdrich is a touchstone. I have yet to read one of her works that didn’t hold me until the end and make me feel I was in the story itself.
  • Beautifully written.

    4
    By Bethindenver
    I found the book a little slow at first but it weaves a majestic tale that draws you in. A unique perspective into the pandemic and life in Minneapolis after George Floyd.