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The Plague of Doves: A Novel
by: Louise Erdrich

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060515126
ISBN: 0060515120
Label: Harper
Manufacturer: Harper
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: May 01, 2008
Publisher: Harper
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Studio: Harper
Sales Rank: 9164

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:

Louise Erdrich's mesmerizing new novel, her first in almost three years, centers on a compelling mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives.

Evelina Harp is a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, who is prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. Nobody understands the weight of historical injustice better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a thoughtful mixed blood who witnesses the lives of those who appear before him, and whose own love life reflects the entire history of the territory. In distinct and winning voices, Erdrich's narrators unravel the stories of different generations and families in this corner of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by history, the two communities' collective stories finally come together in a wrenching truth revealed in the novel's final pages.

The Plague of Doves is one of the major achievements of Louise Erdrich's considerable oeuvre, a quintessentially American story and the most complex and original of her books.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- She has created a masterpiece....again!
I read tracks years ago, and was so taken with the book that I named everything on my computer after characters in the book so I wouldn't forget them (I realize that is a tad odd). Anyway, a friend just got me this book and I have to say, it rivaled the above mentioned and I would recommend it to anyone.

Rating:

- Would rather that it was published as an anthology.
First off, let me give credit where credit is due. The book is stylistically very good, lyrical, descriptive, and generally highfalutin'. The characters and the situations she writes about are individually very interesting and absorbing. There's crime, mystery, lesbians, and a host of other interesting albeit random things in Erdrich's book.

Now for the bad part- the disjointed nature of the book makes it painfully obvious that she took short stories and haphazardly stitched them together in order to market a novel. At the end, after all the connections between the characters and their actions had been revealed, and the initial joy of having finally understood what was going on passed, I was left feeling cold, empty, and unenthusiastic.

In the end, this book has neither ... Read More

Rating:

- Beautiful stories, not a novel
The Art of Getting Well: Maximizing Health and Well-being When You Have a Chronic Illness
I have loved Louise Erdrich for years, ever since I found Love Medicine in the 80s. She tells amazing stories about her overlooked people, the Indians of the North Plains. She writes with stunning attention to detail that makes every scene and character come alive. She faces terrifying history and powerful emotions without flinching.

Over the years, I have really liked The Crown of Columbus and many of her others. Lately, she seemed to have lost something, or maybe I was finding some of the stories repetitious. But The Plague of Doves, to me, contains her best stories in years. Reading this book, you will spend equal amounts of time crying, laughing, and imagining the vivid worlds she unfolds. ... Read More

Rating:

- Surrendering to a Skilled Author
My first time reading Louise Erdrich, well, second if I were to count starting over with the same book: by the fire in the afternoon, instead of just before bed. This was a lovely experience to share, told like a series of meetings between complex friends, the way we get to know our own histories and assocoiates.

The author was in total control of my impressions, sympathies, and prejudices. The sexuality, vivid in its personal and interpretive nature caused me to blush, to feel joy, to squirm, to laugh and to feel restfulness. Look for the sound of humanity played by a violin, but heard through the author's mastery of words.

I thoroughly enjoyed the critical and highly intuitive look at an upstart rural religion, as if the religion itself were one of the many literary characters. ... Read More

Rating:

- The Plague of Doves
A very powerful writer although book was at times hard to follow and got mired down in sexual content. Still all in all a good read.

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