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![The Sentence by [Louise Erdrich]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519jGfSJc8S._SY346_.jpg)
The Sentence Kindle Edition
Louise Erdrich (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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"Dazzling. . . . A hard-won love letter to readers and to booksellers, as well as a compelling story about how we cope with pain and fear, injustice and illness. One good way is to press a beloved book into another's hands. Read The Sentence and then do just that."—USA Today, Four Stars
In this New York Times bestselling novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors.
Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading "with murderous attention," must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.
The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateNovember 9, 2021
- File size3276 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Review
A cathartic and comforting story that book lovers will gobble up.
-- "Real Simple"An unexpected ghost story that is both a timely novel with laugh-out-loud moments as well as a beautiful commentary on identity.
-- "Barnes&Noble.com"Her dramatization of why books are essential to our well-being is resounding.
-- "Booklist (starred review)"More than a gripping ghost story, The Sentence offers profound insights into the effects of the global pandemic and the collateral damage of systemic racism.
-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)" --This text refers to the audioCD edition.About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B08TWYG991
- Publisher : Harper (November 9, 2021)
- Publication date : November 9, 2021
- Language : English
- File size : 3276 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 395 pages
- Lending : Not Enabled
- Best Sellers Rank: #5,151 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #11 in Native American Literature (Kindle Store)
- #18 in Native American Literature (Books)
- #23 in Ghost Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Louise Erdrich is one of the most gifted, prolific, and challenging of American novelists. Her fiction reflects aspects of her mixed heritage: German through her father, and French and Ojibwa through her mother. She is the author of many novels, the first of which, Love Medicine, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the last of which, The Round House, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2012. She lives in Minnesota.
Customer reviews
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Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2021
Top reviews from the United States
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The Sentence is packed with character gems, from a rebellious daughter transformed by motherhood, to a cranky bookstore customer for whom reading is his lifeblood, to a young man who believes himself the descendent of an immortal spirit.
There are gems of writing as well:
“The sky was so gray it matched the cool bark of the trees.”
“The dress rattled in a friendly way.”
“We skied weightlessly through the days as if they were a landscape of repeating features.”
Other observations show how Tookie’s vocation mirrors a vanishing American culture: “Small bookstores have the romance of doomed intimate spaces about to be erased by unfettered capitalism.”
There’s so much to like in this novel of marriage, family, and conflict. Erdrich even manages to weave into her story the COVID pandemic, the George Floyd murder, and the 2020 Presidential election.
It’s a shame that this superb novelist has contaminated The Sentence with pervasive foul language. It reflects negatively on her characters and on herself. For that reason, I must downgrade this captivating book to a three-star rating.

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2021
The Sentence is packed with character gems, from a rebellious daughter transformed by motherhood, to a cranky bookstore customer for whom reading is his lifeblood, to a young man who believes himself the descendent of an immortal spirit.
There are gems of writing as well:
“The sky was so gray it matched the cool bark of the trees.”
“The dress rattled in a friendly way.”
“We skied weightlessly through the days as if they were a landscape of repeating features.”
Other observations show how Tookie’s vocation mirrors a vanishing American culture: “Small bookstores have the romance of doomed intimate spaces about to be erased by unfettered capitalism.”
There’s so much to like in this novel of marriage, family, and conflict. Erdrich even manages to weave into her story the COVID pandemic, the George Floyd murder, and the 2020 Presidential election.
It’s a shame that this superb novelist has contaminated The Sentence with pervasive foul language. It reflects negatively on her characters and on herself. For that reason, I must downgrade this captivating book to a three-star rating.

In fact, if I was asked what this book was about I am not sure I could answer. Relationships? Native American customs? The pandemic? The George Floyd tragedy through the eyes of Indigenous people? Ghosts? Or all of the above with a love story about books running through it?
This is not to say Erdrich doesn’t write beautifully and precisely. Nothing beats her description of holding her grandson, Jarvis, for the first time. Or that her characters are not well drawn. Or that some of the mini-plots weren’t of interest. Or that she is not just plain excellent at writing funny, witty lines. It is just that as a whole there was not enough of a story to propel me forward except for the fact that I was facilitating our book club discussion so was forced to finish it. Which led me to start flipping ahead when the ghost showed up (always a bad sign). And I never missed a thing.
There were definitely some profound passages that made me pause and ponder - which is a good thing right? But some were also puzzling. Like when the main character, Tookie, a recovering drug addict turn book addict, begins to wax eloquently about how transparent some books are and then rifts on (criticizes) books by Elena Ferrante and Kent Ted Krueger. Really? This Tender Land? Are you kidding me?
This graph reminded me of those uncomfortable moments when someone with ADHD blurts out an inappropriate comment in the middle of a discussion. Even if it is funny or interesting there is this sense of - where is that coming from? In the case of these critical comments of her peers - it was definitely not something that Tookie would have been thinking no less saying. The character of Louise, who, like Louise Erdrich, is an author and book owner? Yes. Louise the author of the book? Yes. And talk about thinly disguised devices. Way to sneak in a deep dig at two brilliant writers. And blame the judgment on the main character in the book and not the creator of the character. Clever.
I gave The Sentence a 3.25. It is undeniably well crafted but there are two parts to a book - the writing and the story. And the story was lacking. I couldn’t stay engaged. The book could not possibly be carried by the writing. (Which leads me to the question - who is editing her books? Or has she become so big that she has no one with the guts to tell her the truth about this book?) Readers demand more. Life is too short to have to force yourself to finish a book - especially when you are the book club facilitator.
(Disclaimer - I have never written a book and I know it must be incredibly difficult. So regardless of what I think of it - there is all praise for any dedication to this discipline.)
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