The Sentence

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Erdrich, Louise	4-week checkout	On Hold Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Erdrich, Louise	4-week checkout	Due 05-09-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Erdrich, Louise	4-week checkout	Due 05-17-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Erdrich, Louise	4-week checkout	Due 05-10-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Erdrich, Louise	4-week checkout	Due 05-12-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Erdrich, Louise	4-week checkout	Due 05-18-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Erdrich, Louise	4-week checkout	Due 04-26-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Erdrich, Louise	4-week checkout	Due 05-01-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Erdrich, Louise	4-week checkout	Due 05-03-2024

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.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Cathartic, humorous, thoughtful submitted by mowjac on March 13, 2022, 1:10pm First novel I've read that captures the mood of 2020 without avoiding, minimizing or ignoring the elements that made it such a watershed year. Uncertainty, race, illness, financial pains, all are held with beauty and eloquence in this novel. Humorous self-references to the author are an in joke that persists throughout and keep the novel light despite the material. Reading a master craftswoman at work is such a pleasure. As a former bookseller, I found Tookie very believable and sympathetic.

Well-written and interesting submitted by TeacherN on June 15, 2022, 6:04pm I listened to the audio and found it somewhat difficult to follow. Otherwise, I enjoyed it, and I really appreciated the indigenous perspective on issues like the Black Lives Matter movement, and how the book incorporated the Covid lockdown.

Enjoyable submitted by bcartm01 on June 17, 2022, 10:58pm I really enjoyed this book. I had no idea that it had been written so recently until I came to the part about COVID and BLM. It has a strange plot but I absolutely loved all of the book recommendations from the shop employees, especially the ones by indigenous authors. I would read this one again.

A good read submitted by AndAReaderToo on August 17, 2022, 10:45pm This is the first book I’ve read that covers - in a literary context, the beginnings of the pandemic and the summer of 2020. But that isn’t what it is about. Actually, I found this book to be a bit more like two books spliced together, dissected by the beginning of Covid. A bit like life. But the premise is about a book-store employee with a colorful past who unravels a historical mystery that takes place in Minneapolis in the lead-up to 2020. As the spring and summer of 2020 unfold, it is a bit surreal. I do love Louise Erdrich and I enjoyed the read, even if I wasn’t expecting it to go where it did.

Another must read by Erdrich submitted by cdeucher on June 16, 2023, 11:54am So much to unpack in this novel! What starts out as a rompish novel - the main character Tookie is incarcerated for a set-up of transporting a dead body across state lines and as if that isn't enough he has cocaine stuffed in his armpits 16 years before - and then turns much more serious. The timeline is November of 2019 thru November of 2020 and we all know what happened and how the world was turned upside down. Erdrich focus on this sweet Native family and how books truly can save people's lives. Sprinkle in a ghost and a bookstore - Erdrich's own Bichbark Books in Minneapolis and this reader was certainly hooked.

Lots in this novel submitted by redwood on June 18, 2023, 11:17am The novel begins with a bit of backstory on protagonist Tookie. After unwittingly transporting drugs across state lines, she is handed an outsized sentence of 60 years, then exonerated after 10. She returns to Minneapolis, marries Pollux, the tribal officer who arrested her (this weird dynamic is explored), and gets a job at Birchbark Books, Erdrich’s real-life bookstore (there are cheeky author cameos here). I wish Erdrich wrote in the first person more often, because Tookie’s voice is rich.

Flora, an annoying white customer, dies while holding a book and proceeds to haunt the store from November 2019 to November 2020. Through Flora, Erdrich probes the messiness of allyship—she desperately wants to be Native (in very cringey ways), but also does a lot to materially help the community. Tookie spends the year trying to figure out what’s holding up Flora’s soul.

And then, of course, 2020 happens, “May 34,” as a section heading indicates, and all. Tookie is working alone in an empty bookstore with a ghost. George Floyd is murdered not long after Pollux stops by Cup Foods. Tookie, Pollux, and Pollux’s daughter Hetta try to stay sane and stay safe while supporting their communities. This book doesn’t explain 2020, just explores it with chilling precision and without resolution, which is both unsettling and appropriate—most people still haven’t processed that year.

This is a book for people who love books (it comes with a list of Tookie’s favorite books); who love Minneapolis (it made me want to go even more); who love soup (Tookie takes a tour of soups). It’s heavy, but it’s also a lot of fun, and I sense that Erdrich had fun writing it. There are so many large and small plots and dynamics in this novel, and I definitely want to reread it.

Interesting but long submitted by Mtadams on August 7, 2023, 7:44am I enjoyed this book but at times felt long and drawn out.