The Plague of Doves - Large Print by Louise Erdrich (Paperback)

Book 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.

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.

Review Quotes

"[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

"Wholly felt and exquisitely rendered tales of memory and magic. . . . By novel's end, and in classic Erdrich fashion, every luminous fragment has been assembled into an intricate tapestry that deeply satisfies the mind, the heart, and the spirit." -- Pam Houston, O, The Oprah Magazine

"Writing in prose that combines the magical sleight of hand of Gabriel García Márquez with the earthy, American rhythms of Faulkner...[Ms. Erdrich] has written what is arguably her most ambitious--and in many ways, her most deeply affecting--work yet." -- New York Times

"An intricate tale of heartbreak and humor . . . [a] 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

"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

"Erdrich moves seamlessly from grief to sexual ecstasy, from comedy . . . to tragedy, from richly layered observations of nature and human nature to magical realism. She is less storyteller than medium. One has the sense that voices and events pour into her and reemerge with crackling intensity, as keening music trembling between sorrow and joy." -- Los Angeles Times

"Masterfully told . . . one can only marvel, while reading her thirteenth novel, 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

"Louise Erdrich's imaginative freedom has reached its zenith--The Plague of Doves is her dazzling masterpiece." -- Philip Roth

"Mesmerizing. . . Erdrich deploys potent, recurring images. . . to communicate the complexity and the mystery of human relationships. With both impeccable comic timing and a powerful sense of the tragic, Erdrich continues to illuminate, in highly original style, 'the river of our existence.'" -- Booklist (starred review)

"Fine and engaging. . . . A marvelous novel. . . . There is a symphonic achievement in Erdrich's capacity to bring so many disparate stories to life, and to have their thematic echoes overlap in such compelling harmony." -- Claire Messud, New York Review of Books

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

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

"The great web that connects Erdrich's vivid characters is so subtly drawn, and so surprising in its configuration, the novel, like every good story, yields new insights and surprises with each immersion." -- Chicago Tribune

"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

"At once mythic and down-to-earth. . . beautiful, funny, moving, and unexpected." -- Elle

"Instantly gripping." -- Marie Claire

"In scenes of mesmerizing beauty, Erdrich shows how the lives of the victims and the lynch mob entangle decades later. . . . Her powerful conclusion reveals brilliant plotting and makes the effort to get there completely worthwhile." -- People (4 stars)

"A multigenerational tour de force of sin, redemption, murder and vengeance" -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A lush, multilayered book. . . . Guilt and redemption pepper these self-sufficient, intertwining stories, and readers who can keep track of the characters will find their efforts rewarded. The magic lies in the details of Erdrich's ever-replenishing mythology." -- Kirkus Reviews