The Plague of Doves

Starred review from January 14, 2008
Erdrich's 13th novel, a multigenerational tour de force of sin, redemption, murder and vengeance, finds its roots in the 1911 slaughter of a farming family near Pluto, N.Dak. The family's infant daughter is spared, and a posse forms, incorrectly blames three Indians and lynches them. One, Mooshum Milk, miraculously survives. Over the next century, descendants of both the hanged men and the lynch mob develop relationships that become deeply entangled, and their disparate stories are held together via principal narrator Evelina, Mooshum Milk's granddaughter, who comes of age on an Indian reservation near Pluto in the 1960s and '70s and forms two fateful adolescent crushes: one on bad-boy schoolmate Corwin Peace and one on a nun. Though Evelina doesn't know it, both are descendants of lynch mob members. The plot splinters as Evelina enrolls in college and finds work at a mental asylum; Corwin spirals into a life of crime; and a long-lost violin (its backstory is another beautiful piece of the mosaic) takes on massive significance. Erdrich plays individual narratives off one another, dropping apparently insignificant clues that build to head-slapping revelations as fates intertwine and the person responsible for the 1911 killing is identified.

Starred review from June 30, 2008
The dazzling performance of Kathleen McInerney and Peter Francis James creates the sense of a full-cast audio with voices ranging from childhood to the aged with everything in between. With the rhythms of a charming entertainer, Mooshum, a family patriarch, spins tall tales from the days of magical happenings and sad realities. Billy, half-visionary and half-lunatic, is performed as both spellbinding and dangerous. As Antoine Brazil Coutts, James sounds judicious, fair and hesitant at revealing too much. McInerney covers a range of women: Marm, Billy's wife, has an emotionless voice, like one who has to preserve every drop of energy for pending disasters; and Evalina's light lilt with a faint Native American intonation is perfect. Despite the epic cast, the narrators never leave the listener confused. Passages of fiddle music are a lovely addition. This audio is a model recording of one of America's best novelists. A Harper hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 14).

Starred review from February 15, 2008
Erdrich adds more layers of history to her community centered on an Ojibwe reservation in rural North Dakota, and as her loyal readers understand, she is going to make us work for it. This latest novel (after "The Game of Silence", a novel for children) begins with a mysterious killing. As the people of the town of Pluto get the chance to tell their stories, they are attempting to reconcile the tangible with the spiritual, the native with the Eurocentric, and the reason behind the murders is hidden within the struggle. Be it the power of nature, the power of the holy, or the power of one's ancestry, the people that populate these linked tales are at the mercy of unseen forces. Erdrich's stories require our patience, as we are offered bits and scraps that we must somehow arrange in order to get to the sum of their parts. She gives us credit for being smart enough to see the big picture, and the end result is always worth the effort. This work serves to bolster her body of work, and we are fortunate that such a gifted storyteller continues to focus her gaze on this region of the continent. Highly recommended for all fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 1/08.]Susanne Wells, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2008
Every so often something shatters like ice and we are in the river of our existence. We are aware. Those are the moments Erdrich captures inthis mesmerizing novelset in Pluto, North Dakota, a white town on the edge of an Ojibwe reservation. Founded out ofwhite greed, the town is now dying, deserted by both industry and its young people.Evelina, a girl ofmixed Indian and white descent, hearsmany family stories from her irascible grandfather, Mooshum, who has learned to deal with the deep sorrow in his life by practicing the patient art of ridicule (his sly baiting of the local priest is one ofmany comic highlights).Evelina also learns about the towns long, bloody history, including the slaughter of a white farm family and the hanging of innocent Native Americans unfairly targeted as the perpetrators of the crime. Over succeeding generations, descendants of both the victims and the lynching party intermarry, creating a tangled history. Throughout Erdrich deploys potent, recurringimagesa dance performed to thwart the plague of doves destroying crops, the heartbreaking music of a violin, an athletic nun rounding the bases in her flowing habitto communicatethe complexity and the mystery of human relationships. With both impeccable comic timing and a powerful sense of the tragic, Erdrichcontinues toilluminate, inhighly original style, the river of our existence.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)