The Round House / Louise Erdrich

One day Joe, a Native American teenager, helps his father pull saplings that have taken root in the cracks of the foundation of their house. It turns out to be a metaphor for the cracked foundation of their own existence.

Mother is late coming home, and their worry sends them out in the car to see if she’s perhaps had a flat tire. They see her driving at a fast clip towards home and further speculate that she’s forgotten that it was Sunday and the grocery was closed. They can never imagine the real reason for her lateness. Their world is turned topsy-turvy when it transpires that she has been the victim of an unspeakable crime. Because of the mish-mash of property boundaries that separate tribal land from federal and state land, and the fact that the perpetrator was a white man, bringing the criminal to justice is all the more complicated.

Erdrich creates almost a legal thriller with The Round House, but its setting on the reservation makes it all the more interesting. The characters are wonderfully drawn and I can easily see it becoming a film. Dark, but well-written.

National Book Award for Fiction 2012

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