LaRose

We have a small branch library in Much Wenlock, and we’re lucky to have that. As with the arts, education, health and social services, the traffic is all in the direction of austerity. So when I get into that welcoming little building I don’t rely on what happens to be on the shelves. I’m usually picking up a request I’ve made, where I’ve read a review and they get the book from somewhere else in the county.

But this time was different. Short of things to read, I idly trawled the shelves, and found LaRose, by Louise Erdrich, and thought I’d give it a try. It’s just brilliant. The outline is staggering, though apparently based on a real incident. A man aiming to kill a deer finds that by accident he’s killed the sone of a friend and neighbour. Drawing on Native American custom, he decides that the way to atone for this is to hand over his own son to the other man’s family, for them to bring him up.

An outrageous premise, but she makes it totally believable, and gripping throughout its fouyr hunded pages. On the way, she takes in family tensions, teenage sex, the development of tribes over generations, the delusions of revenge and conspiracy, amid the background of current US politics. Erdrich is a poet as well as a novelist, and it shows. I can’t remember having enjoyed a book so much in years.