The Round House

I usually only review books for The New York Journal of Books and tend to not make the effort to share what I am reading, at least not often. This is an exception.

There are many times when books that have won prestigious national or international awards tend to fall short (in my eyes) and don’t live up to the hype and praise. 2012 National Book Award winner (for fiction) The Round House by Louise Erdich is not not one of those books. This story soars and takes you with it.

The story focuses on the aftermath of a brutal attack upon Geraldine Coutts, on the reservation where she and her husband and her thirteen-year-old son Joe live in North Dakota. Everything is seen through Joe’s eyes as he and his father (who is also a judge) try to discover who attacked their loved one and why.

Every character in this book is as real as real can be. Joe’s family, extended family, friends and everyone else on and off the reservation come to life with nuance and depth. “My father bent his head down and rested his forehead on his fist. He closed his eyes. There was the ticking of the clock in that sunny kitchen. Around the face of the clock there was a kind of sunburst. But the rays were plastic squiggles and the thing looked more like a gilded octopus. Still, I kept looking at the clock because if I looked down I would have to see the top of my father’s head. To see the egg brown scalp and thin patch of gray hairs would put me over the edge. I’d snap, I thought, if I looked down.”

One could go on and on, with further explanations and examples, but it will suffice to simply say that this is a story most people will want to read. It includes humor, pathos, fear, suspense, drama, coming of age and romance, but most importantly, it includes some of the best writing to be published in years.