The Round House: National Book Award Winning Fiction Hardcover - 2012

From the rear cover

National Book Award Winner

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

Written with undeniable urgency, and illuminating the harsh realities of contemporary life in a community where Ojibwe and white live uneasily together, The Round House is a brilliant and entertaining novel, a masterpiece of literary fiction. Louise Erdrich embraces tragedy, the comic, a spirit world very much present in the lives of her all-too-human characters, and a tale of injustice that is, unfortunately, an authentic reflection of what happens in our own world today.

Media reviews

Citations

• Booklist, 08/01/2012, Page 25
• Booklist Editors Choice/Adult, 01/01/2013, Page 9
• Christian Century, 12/26/2012, Page 35
• Entertainment Weekly, 11/30/2012, Page 77
• Kirkus Reviews, 09/01/2012, Page 0
• Library Journal, 08/01/2012, Page 83
• New York Review of Books, 03/07/2013, Page 17
• New York Times Book Review, 10/21/2012, Page 26
• New Yorker (The), 10/14/2012, Page 9
• NY Times Notable Bks of Year, 12/02/2012, Page 25
• People Weekly, 10/29/2012, Page 47
• Publishers Weekly, 07/16/2012, Page 140
• Publishers Weekly Best Books, 11/05/2012, Page 22
• Shelf Awareness, 10/16/2012, Page 0