Title: The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich
Book Beginnings quote:
On a mild autumn night in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, Crystal pulled herself up behind the wheel of an International side-dump, steered out of the sugar processing plant, and started her haul.
Friday56 quote:
As they drove across the river, Gary's fingers tightened on the steering wheel and his mind kept flowing the wrong way.
Summary: The setting of Erdrich's newest novel, The Mighty Red, is in the Red River Valley of North Dakota and a farming community whose livelihood revolves around the sugar beet during the Great Recession of 2008. And like the path of the mighty Red river, the story's path is also meandering and expansive.
At its core the story revolves around a love triangle between Kismet Poe, of the Ojibwe tribe and brilliant beyond the confines of their small community, and two boys -- Gary Geist, the high school's football star and son of one of the biggest sugar beet farmers in the valley, who is handsome and popular; and Hugo, a red-haired homeschooled boy who is bookish and non athletic. When Gary proposes marriage to Kismet his mother, Winnie, is thrilled. Crystal, Kismet's mother is shocked and upset. On the day before her wedding two things happen: Kismet "falls" into the Red River and has to be rescued and her father skips town with all the money from the church's building fund. Neither are a good sign. Indeed the new marriage is off to a very bad start.
Review: I am a Louise Erdrich fan. As in all her other books she includes in The Mighty Red indigenous characters into her plot. These characters grapple with how to cope with the modern world while trying to incorporate and keep alive their own values and heritage. At one point, for example, Crystal, who now is destitute since her husband ran off not only with the church's money but with their family money as well, makes herself a meal of lambsquarters, one of the most nutritious plants on earth. While at the same time the Geists are spreading poison all over their sugar beet field to get rid of the same plant.
The story indeed meanders around, back and forth in time to a year before when something happened to Gary and his football friends, and even further back in history to the time there were so many buffaloes that it took three days traveling on the train to pass them all. Erdrich never misses a chance to educate her readers about issues related to the management of our land, and our tattered bond to Mother Earth. In the Mighty Red she deals largely with the way farmers use of pesticides on monoculture plants like the sugar beet is poisoning the land, and the effects of fracking is poisons the water. Fortunately, these details are delivered with a handful of satire and humor so they are bearable to read about. In fact, many parts of the story are downright funny, especially the details that emerge about Kismet's father.
I really liked this summary of the book here where the book is compared to a quilt made of Kismet's old t-shirts:
The bustling and brightly coloured heterogeneity here is mirrored in The Mighty Red at large. Following a variety of perspectives, it is part romcom, part overblown family saga, part cli-fi warning, part absurdist heist, part small-town satire, all tumbling out amid the turmoil of the 2008 financial crash.
And just to make it a little bit more fun, there is a ghost.
My rating; 4.5 stars.
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