Review: 'The Sentence'

 ©2022 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

The Sentence
By Louise Erdrich
Literary Fiction
Harper

Whether it's the past not letting go of us, or us not letting go of the past, many souls walk with ghosts swirling around them. They may be metaphorical ghosts bringing about tragedies that reverberate around the world, or they may be spirits haunting a bookstore. Both types figure in Louise Erdrich's The Sentence.

Tookie lives what may seem like a quiet, even mundane, life. But it's one she never expected to have after being sentenced to 60 years in prison. She agreed to go get the body of the lover of her crush from his wife, and transported it, plus more, across state lines. Yes, it is as wild as it sounds and Tookie's acceptance of that was a clear sign this is a character to watch and wonder over. She is released after serving more than 10 years and talks her way into working at Louise Erdrich's real-life bookstore. 

While in prison, Tookie became a reader. One of those people who live and breathe books, who will race through a book and then go back to the first page to savor every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every page.

One day, she sees the tribal cop who arrested her. Pollux always has been the one for her, and they are married. It's a good life, no matter how quiet it looks on the outside. Tookie treasures it, but is not surprised that there will be upheaval.

The upheaval arrives when one of Tookie's best customers, an annoying white woman who is one of those Indian wannabes, dies. Although Flora has died, she isn't gone. She's haunting the bookstore. At first, it's benign, even though it unnerves Tookie. But as with all stories, things change and build.

This is November 2019, one of the few remaining months before the world changes. Money is tight at the bookstore, the owner is headed out on tour (for this book) and people are starting to hear rumors about a mystery virus.

As Tookie and her family -- including her stepdaughter Hetta and her new baby, who were visiting but are now stuck together uneasily -- hunker down, the malevolent spirit that took over the White House casts a spell over their lives as surely as Flora has taken over the bookstore. Other bookstore employees are now hearing her. And nearly all of Indigenous women who work there have ghost stories of their own, even if they do not believe in them.

There is another harmful spirit that haunts Minneapolis, and its evil is unleashed when Derek Chauvin murders George Floyd. Even with the pandemic gathering force, many in Tookie's world take part in the marches and in trying to protect and clean up their city. During these events, of course Covid attacks a beloved character.

It is difficult to reach a resolution to ongoing events, although Erdrich does an admirable job of getting Tookie and her family through the initial phases. The Flora storyline is another facet to the idea of spirits, and approaches it from the aspect of how sometimes people are not randomly chosen by outside forces. For things to happen for a reason is a powerful human desire, and one of the joys of a well-crafted narrative is discovering how the why can connect to the what.

Throughout, there are two very strong storylines that make The Sentence another powerful Erdrich novel. Tookie and Pollux are two parts of a whole. Their personalities, their love, their essences, result in a lovely story.

If I stepped off a cliff in that heart of his, he'd catch me.

Dear Reader, I was captivated.

That this is a novel for all Dear Readers is evident in Tookie's love of story. The authors she handsells to customers make for a booklist both broad and deep. Erdrich even includes Tookie's top books in an afterword that is a delight to savor. Seeing beloved authors' names throughout the book also is a delight, including the few appearances Erdrich makes as a character in her own novel. 

One of the best is a customer Tookie names "Dissatisfaction" because the older Black man has read so much and is so choosy that it is difficult to satisfy his reading habit. Giving him a copy of James McBride's Deacon King Kong is a great scene.

It's also delightful to see how often Tookie and others gush over Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.

Books are a lifeline to so many in this novel. The right one can be a special solace if, like Tookie, the reader realizes that even for those who do not believe in spirits, the past still exists in the present.