Indigenous Voices Book Club: "LaRose" by Louise Erdrich

The Indigenous Voices Book Club is devoted to reading and discussing books by Indigenous writers, bringing together fiction, memoir, history, poetry, and more. Each month, we'll encounter stories and perspectives that deepen our understanding of Indigenous experiences, histories, cultures, and contemporary life.

This month, we're reading Louise Erdrich's LaRose—a powerful, deeply moving novel about grief, justice, family, and the complicated ways we try to repair what cannot be undone. After Landreaux Iron accidentally shoots and kills his neighbor's five-year-old son while hunting, he turns to an old Ojibwe tradition in search of a way to make amends: he and his wife give their own young son, LaRose, to the grieving family. What follows is an intimate story of two families bound together by an unimaginable loss, as anger, love, resentment, and forgiveness ripple across generations. Set in the close-knit world of Erdrich's fictional North Dakota reservation, LaRose weaves Ojibwe history and tradition into a story that asks difficult questions about restitution, belonging, and whether one family can ever make another whole. Tender, haunting, and beautifully layered, it's a novel about what we owe one another—and the many forms that healing can take.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

In this literary masterwork, the author of the National Book Award-winning The Round House and the Pulitzer Prize nominee The Plague of Doves wields her breathtaking narrative magic in an emotionally haunting contemporary tale of a tragic accident, a demand for justice, and a profound act of atonement with ancient roots in indigenous culture. Inspiring and affecting, LaRose is a powerful exploration of loss, justice, and the reparation of the human heart. An unforgettable, dazzling tour de force from one of America’s most distinguished writers.

“...a magnificent, sorrowful tale of justice, retribution, and love.” — Vanity Fair

“…a brutal, ultimately buoyant dramatization of the way unexpected kinships heal us.” — O, the Oprah Magazine

“A stunning novel…A heartbreaking tale of love, family, and obligation that spans generations.” — Real Simple

“…[a] meditative, profoundly humane story…Electric, nimble, and perceptive, this novel is about ‘the phosphorous of grief’ but also, more essentially, about the emotions men need, but rarely get, from one another.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“The radiance of this many-faceted novel is generated by Erdrich’s tenderness for her characters…magnificent…a brilliantly imagined and constructed saga of empathy, elegy, spirituality, resilience, wit, wonder, and hope that will stand as a defining master work of American literature for generations to come.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Erdrich spins a powerful, resonant story with masterly finesse…memorable and satisfying.” — Publishers Weekly Starred Pick of the Week

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the award-winning author of many novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.