Books : The Plague of Doves: A Novel

Rating: - A fantastic read...
To be sure, this is not "Love Medicine," and the days of Lipsha Morrissey and family seem to be a dying ember, flickering off in the distant horizon. Nonetheless, Ms. Erdrich is a tremendously gifted writer, with a talent for weaving together stories that are absolutely mesmerizing. This is no different.

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Rating: - I Can Understand the Hoopla - to a Point
There were parts of this three generational book that were absolutely terrific. The members of oldest generation had spirit, uniqueness and depth. The second generation was a void. The third a mishmash that never found a voice that resonated. I looked forward to any scene that had the old men or the retrospective scenes.

The book, chronologically but not as written, starts with the lynching of Indians falsely accused of a massacreing a family, of which an infant survives. One of the group of Indians is spared and the yarn commences through him and his future generations. The telling is extremely disjointed. Only at the end are the relationships of some of the characters finally connected. This disjointedness really detracted from the book and the lack of continuity was aided by frequent use of nicknames which made character identification difficult.

The descendants of the lynching mob and victims stay in the area and relationships are formed. After two generations, I missed the point - do the youth really care? Should the reader? It seemed the lynching tale was merely a vehicle to bring together disparate character studies.

The good parts of the book - which were very good - offset the bad to make this a mediocre novel. It may have done much better as a collection of short stories with no pretense of connection.

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Rating: - Interesting read but not satisfying
Though very well written and interesting in parts, I had a hard time feeling satisfied with the book as a novel. It was disjointed and had so many characters that I couldn't keep everyone straight. A family tree diagram would have been helpful. The ending and reveal of the murderer was totally flat with no motive given for the killings. It didn't even make sense. I found some of the sexual situations too descriptive for good taste. It seemed that they were more gratuitous than actually necessary for the plot. I plodded along through the whole book hoping that in the end it would all come together. But when I was finished, I wondered why I had bothered to read it. I was very disappointed with the book as a whole.

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Rating: - Not as good as I thought it would be
When I read a review of this book in Vogue, I got so excited about it I searched for it for weeks. I finally found it in Borders, but having only $20 on me, I couldn't afford the $25 hardback. When I finally found the book in my local libary, I snatched it off the shelf!
The Plague of Doves is a story that chronicles a dying town in North Dakota. Along with tales of how the town was founded, the story centers around the murder of an entire farm family- of which only a sleeping infant was spared, and of the hanging of several town residents unfairly blamed for the crime. Tales of the town's mixed race residents (American Indian and French) are also included, told from the pov of Evelina, a girl who constantly hopelessly falls in love, her aunt's lover the Judge Coutts, and even her aunt's lover's former lover, among many. While interesting, the story doesn't seem to really have a point, and when the truth behind the murder is finally revealed (on the last page) the reader is left wondering what all the hype was.

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Rating: - Plague of Doves
My review is very prejudiced as I am a great of fan of all Susan Erdrich's works. Like most of her stories about Fleur's family and tribe this story is so interwoven and immersed in the past it makes the recently forgotten past all the more painful to read about. Americans think of themselves as so future oriented it is surprising to find ourselves just as trappped and burdened by the past as the rest of the Old World. Keep it coming Susan Erdrich!