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The Round House (Reprint) (Paperback) by Louise Erdrich

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About the Book



One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to reveal what happened. From a National Book Award Winner.



Book Synopsis



The Round House won the National Book Award for fiction.

One of the most revered novelists of our time--a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life--Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves with The Round House, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family.

Riveting and suspenseful, arguably the most accessible novel to date from the creator of Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, Erdrich's The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece of literary fiction--at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.



From the Back Cover



Washington Post Best Book of the Year

New York Times Notable Book

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface because Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.



Review Quotes



"The story draws the reader unstoppably page by page."--Seattle Times

"Poignant and surprisingly funny, it's the acclaimed writer's best book yet."--O, the Oprah Magazine, Our Favorite Reads of 2012

"A gripping mystery with a moral twist: Revenge might be the harshest punishment, but only for the victims. A-"--Entertainment Weekly

"An artfully balanced mystery, thriller and coming-of-age story...this novel will have you reading at warp speed to see what happens next."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Erdrich never shields the reader or Joe from the truth...She writes simply, without flourish."--Philadelphia Inquirer

"Erdrich's bittersweet contemplation of love and friendship, morality and generativity...result in a tender, tough coming-of-age tale."--Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Joe may be one of Erdrich's best-drawn characters; he's conflicted, feisty one moment, scared and disappointed the next. THE ROUND HOUSE will inevitably draw comparisons to Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD..."--Miami Herald

"THE ROUND HOUSE is filled with stunning language that recalls shades of Faulkner, García Márquez and Toni Morrison. Deeply moving, this novel ranks among Erdrich's best work, and it is impossible to forget."--USA Today

"Haunting...a bittersweet coming-of-age tale...tender but unsentimental and buoyed by subtle wit"--People

"One of the most pleasurable aspects of Erdrich's writing...is that while her narratives are loose and sprawling, the language is always tight and poetically compressed...In the end there's nothing, not the arresting plot or the shocking ending of THE ROUND HOUSE, that resonates as much as the characters."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Wise and suspenseful...Erdrich's voice as well as her powers of insight and imagination fully infuse this novel...She writes so perceptively and brilliantly about the adolescent passion for justice that one is transported northward to her home territory."--Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune

"A powerful human story...By boring deeply into one person's darkest episode, Erdrich hits the bedrock truth about a whole community."--New York Times Book Review

"THE ROUND HOUSE is a stunning piece of architecture. It is carefully, lovingly, disarmingly constructed. Even the digressions demand strict attention."--Newsday

"The novel showcases her [Erdrich's] extraordinary ability to delineate the ties of love, resentment, need, duty and sympathy that bind families together...[a] powerful novel."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Erdrich has given us a multitude of narrative voices and stories. Never before has she given us a novel with a single narrative voice so smart, rich and full of surprises as she has in The Round House...and, I would argue, her best so far."--NPR/All Thing's Considered

"Each new Erdrich novel adds new layers of pathos and comedy, earthiness and spiritual questing, to her priceless multigenerational drama. THE ROUND HOUSE is one of her best -- concentrated, suspenseful, and morally profound."--Jane Ciabattari, Boston Globe

"Louise Erdrich's prose is spare, precise, smooth as polished stone. Her books are rich with literary muscle." -Austin American-Statesman--Austin American-Statesman

"While Erdrich is known as a brilliant chronicler of the American Indian experience, her insights into our family, community, and spiritual lives transcend any category."--Reader's Digest

"A stunning and devastating tale of hate crimes and vengeance...Erdrich covers a vast spectrum of history, cruel loss, and bracing realizations. A preeminent tale in an essential American saga."--Donna Seaman, Booklist, Starred Review of THE ROUND HOUSE

"A sweeping, suspenseful outing from this prizewinning, generation-spanning chronicler of her Native American people, the Ojibwe of the northern plains...a sumptuous tale."--Elle

"Emotionally compelling...Joe is an incredibly endearing narrator, full of urgency and radiant candor...the story he tells transforms a sad, isolated crime into a revelation about how maturity alters our relationship with our parents, delivering us into new kinds of love and pain."--Ron Charles, Washington Post

"Erdrich skillfully makes Joe's coming-of-age both universal and specific...the story is also ripe with detail about reservation life, and with her rich cast of characters, Erdrich provides flavor, humor and depth. Joe's relationship with his father, Bazil, a judge, has echoes of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD."--Library Journal, Starred Review of THE ROUND HOUSE

"Erdrich threads a gripping mystery and multilayered portrait of a community through a deeply affecting coming-of-age novel."--Karen Holt, O, the Oprah Magazine

"Moving, complex, and surprisingly uplifting...likely to be dubbed the Native American TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD"--Parade, Fall's Best Books

"Riveting...One of Erdrich's most suspenseful novels.... It vividly portrays both the deep tragedy and crazy comedy of life."--BookPage, Cover/Feature Review

"The story pulses with urgency as she [Erdrich] probes the moral and legal ramifications of a terrible act of violence."--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review of THE ROUND HOUSE

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