Review: The Sentence

The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich; read by the author (HarperAudio 2021)

First line: “While in prison, I received a dictionary.”

After having read and loved Love Medicine (one of Louise Erdrich’s early novels) several times, I’ve known for years I wanted to read more from her, hence why I’ve had several of her works on my shelves for a long time. I was looking through Libby and Hoopla to see if I could get my hands on any of them to listen to during Native American Heritage Month this month, and I was very interested to find that Louise herself narrates The Sentence.

This story is narrated by Tookie, an accidental felon and midlife bookseller at the very real Birchbark Books in Minneapolis (owned by Louise Erdrich, who makes several appearances herself in this book), beginning on All Souls Day 2019. Tookie’s most annoying customer, Flora, has died and is now haunting the bookshop, for reasons Tookie cannot figure out. Over the course of the year, Tookie works to get rid of the ghost all while surviving the tumultuous 2020, as covid takes over and the murder of George Floyd tears apart Minneapolis.

As I listened, I found myself being reminded of another recent read: Demon Copperhead. While the narrators and plots are arguably nothing alike (young, red-headed, orphan boy in the rural south versus middle-aged indigenous bookseller in the northern midwest), their narrative voices and tones felt so similar to me. Their narrations were both wickedly clever, humorous despite the bleakness of their situations, and good at seeing the wisdom in others. I couldn’t help but love Demon, and I felt similarly for Tookie. She’s often a mess, but I love her so. I also loved her marriage with her husband Pollux. Their teasing and needling is so well balanced with their utter love for each other in a way that made my heart clench.

While I admittedly didn’t care much about the ghost part of this story (which is a fairly large portion), I was captivated by Erdrich’s storytelling style and the relationships Tookie has with those around her, including her stepdaughter and grandson, her fellow booksellers, and customers. I thought she captured 2020 so deftly, from the near constant anxiety, isolation, and confusion, to the fear for the health of our loved ones and strange routines we all developed, it took me right back to that time. And not necessarily in a bad way. If anything, it gave me perspective to just how far we’ve come since then, which felt gratifying. I also found her representation of Minneapolis in particular during that violent and upsetting summer was well done.

Erdrich did a great job narrating her own work, and truly took on the essence of Tookie (even while Louise existed simultaneously lol). I’m glad to have finally read another of her works and hope to get to another one soon.