Louise Erdrich's Future Home of the Living God

Louise Erdrich never writes the same book twice. That should go without saying of any author, but plenty seem to write a variation of the same book over and over. (I'll not name names for diplomatic reasons.) Her most recent novel Future Home of the Living God starts as the story of a young woman Cedar Songmaker exploring her roots and meeting her birth mother. She does find it odd that as the child of a Native American mother, a non-native family had been able to adopt her, usually prevented by law to maintain ethnicity.

She meets Mary Potts, Senior. (since her own birth name was Mary Potts), Mary's husband,  and her own half sister, a troubled teenager with a drug habit whose clothing seems more like costuming.

Readers learn early that Cedar is pregnant and single, though she reveals some details about the baby's father early in the tale. Gradually, though, Erdrich's tale takes a dystopian turn, first merely suggested, and then explained for fully: Something has gone wrong in nature and evolution seems to be reversing. Not only are plant and animal life affected, but something strange seems to be happening with pregnancies and the delivery of new babies. In fact, as government control increases, pregnant women are expected to turn themselves in or to be arrested and held at special hospitals--conveniently housed in prison facilities.

Cedar is challenged to protect herself and her unborn baby, drawing on help and support--often by stealth--from both the family that raised her and the family of her birth mother. The biggest challenge is learning whom to trust, particularly as citizens are granted incentives to turn on one another.

One interesting thread in the novel comes as Cedar embraces Catholicism, the faith of her birth mother, despite her Songmaker family's agnostic or atheistic beliefs. She observes other-worldly visions by Mary Potts, Senior, and other members of her community.

Erdrich is at her best when she puts her characters into complicated situations that force them to decide between trusting themselves or the members of the network they have built around them. For someone wanting a light summer read, this isn't it; for anyone wanting to be unsettled and engaged, this is a good choice.

Louise Erdrich's Future Home of the Living God

I haven't re-read Little Women, Louisa May Alcott's classic, in years. Unless my memory fails me, I read it the first time in the first grade. I have always found reading a social activity, so I want to read what my friends read. Honestly, these days, I want my friends to read  what I  read. In elementary school, my favorite bookish friend was Elaine. I've surely mentioned her and her mom, our elementary librarian, many times here on this blog, particularly since the title Discriminating Reader is an allusion to what Mrs. Comer wrote in my 3rd grade yearbook. Many of the classics I encountered as an early reader were influenced by the friendship--The Wizard of Oz, Charlotte's Web, Island of the Blue Dolphins--to name a few.

Recently, I read Anne Boyd Rioux's nonfiction work Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Matters. She had researched Alcott's life and how it related to her novel, as well as the history of the book, the movies, and even the other works influenced by Little Women. Around the same time, my granddaughter came home with a list of classic novels from which to choose. The only stipulation was she couldn't re-read. It had to be a new book to her. I just happened to have a copy (or three) of the novel. I got to see her culminating response to the book, a video she produced with the help of some of her neighborhood friends.

Todd's novel The Spring Girls makes no bones about its being a retelling of the story, particularly since almost none of the names are changed. (Marmie becomes Meredith, but the girls' names and even Laurie are the originals.)  In this case, though, they are living in military housing in Louisiana while their father serves in Afghanistan. The book opens on Christmas day with the same line from Little Women: "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents." Jo is still the central character, a tomboy with aspirations of going to New York to become a writer.  Beth  is a recluse, home-schooled by choice.  Meg, the oldest sister, is trying to outrun a bad reputation in their previous hometown, hard to do in the days of social media. Feisty little Amy is young enough that her aspirations vary according to which older sister is her model for that particular day.

The book also has its share of romance in bloom--between Jo and Laurie, Meg and her recent West Point graduate John Brooke and the Middle Eastern son of her employer (a wealthy woman who keeps Meg around to do her makeup.) Meanwhile, their mother whom they call by her first name Meredith is so distracted by her husband's absence and then by his injury (which should not be a spoiler if you read Little Women) that she sometimes seems to overlook what her daughters are going through. Her loose expectations of her girls certainly diverge from what Marmie might have taught her four daughters, not batting an eye when Meg spends the weekend with her newly returned boyfriend (whom she hopes will become her fiancé) at a fancy New Orleans hotel.

As Rioux noted, plenty of other variations on the story have been produced. A retelling or adaptation doesn't take away from the first experience of reading the novel. I just wonder if knowledge of how the Jo-Laurie romance ends up--after this book closes--might have affected my reading.

Summer Solstice: Summer Reading

Diane Setterfield's latest novel begins and ends at the summer solstice at the Swan, a tavern on the Thames known for its storytellers. The owner Joe is in poor health but his wife Margot and their daughters (whom everyone calls the little Margots) keep the place running. Their only son Jonathan, born with Down's Syndrome livens up the place, hoping to learn to tell stories well himself.

On this particular June day, though, a man injured beyond recognition appears at the door, holding what appears to be a rag doll but is actually a four-year-old girl, presumably dead. When Rita, the local nurse is summoned to attend to the two victims, she is surprised when the girl begins to breathe again.

Having read and loved Setterfield's Thirteenth Tale many years ago, I was eager to read this one, but I struggled at first because of the many threads to the story. The girl is claimed by the Vaughans, whose daughter Amelia had disappeared from her bed two years before. His wife is so relieved to recover the girl that Mr. Vaughan hides his own skepticism about the girl's identity.

Also drawn into the tale are Robert Armstrong and his wife Bess. A large black man, Armstrong is the son of a young nobleman who fell in love with his maid. Though a marriage was out of the question, Robert was provided with support and an education. Around the time the nearly drowned girl appears, he has learned of a child of his stepson Robin and investigates to see if the girl might be his and Bess's grandchild.

Meanwhile Lily White, something of a hermit who cleans the parsonage, believes  (quite improbably) the drowned girl was her sister Anne.

As Setterfield weaves the threads of the story, building multi-layered, engaging characters, she draws the reader in further. She also adds a light touch of fantasy, including the mythical character called Quietly, the boatman believed either to ferry people across the river to the afterlife or to return them if their time has not come. With the motif of storytelling in the tale, the little elements of fantasy are rendered credible.

Adding to the charm of the well-developed plot, Setterfield pens memorable lines I found myself wanting to write down to consider again later.  Looking back on the book, I realize that nothing can keep me engaged in a story, even one that starts slow, more than good writing--the best words in the best order, Coleridge's definition of poetry.

Summer Solstice: Summer Reading