Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer's Reviews > The Sentence

Now shortlisted for the 2022 Women’s Prize.

This is the first book I have read by Louise Erdich who I have seen described as something of a national treasure in America. She who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2021 for her previous novel “The Night Watchman” - a prize which of course like most US books prizes excludes any non-American authors (presumably for the same reason that Americans play club team sports that no one else plays so they can claim to be world champions). Now that novel was barely reviewed in the mainstream literary reviewing media in the UK - which in some ways is a puzzle but which I think may be because stories about prejudices against indigenous people do not resonate as well as books about say slavery and its aftermath.

I would also have to say that reading this novel - which I largely enjoyed - I noted firstly that (to me like so many literary American novels) the world outside the US barely exists (other interestingly than in the large number of non-American authors mentioned) and secondly that the novel seemed to me very American - almost as if I was slightly excluded from what it took for granted.

I would also say though that the book reminded me in some - not all aspects - of the most recent writings of Ali Smith: the Seasonal Quartet and particularly Companion Piece) and I have always thought that a non-UK reader cannot really fully understand Smith’s writing.

In terms of similarity to Smith’s writing I would say: in its sometimes seemingly randomly scattered multiple storylines (and side stories) which somehow converge; in its blend of the very real and immediate with the fey/timeshifting (Smith) or indigenous belief/folklore (Erdich); in the way in which it, not always entirely successfully but still admirably, feeds in an almost instantaneous lived-through experience of current political events, alongside its storyline - a tendency which gives the books an urgent immediacy albeit it will be interesting to revisit them in say 10 years and see if they have retained a legacy.

I would say though that one difference could be characterised as that while Smith plays with language, Erdich’s focus in more on literature.

The story starts with a rather odd prologue: the main character Tookie (a Native American who narrates most but not quite all of the book in the first person) tells of her arrest and imprisonment in 2005 (while in her thirties) for the rather bizarre crime of drug smuggling - bizarre because the drugs were concealed (by someone else) in the armpits of a dead body she transports for slightly obscure reasons between two girlfriends of the dead man.

This episode seems to serve a number of purposes (which I cannot help thing might have largely been achieved with a slightly less odd crime): to introduce the subject of death and its aftermath and affect both on those left behind and those who have died; to allow Tookie to encounter (and have a formative experience) with Pollux, the Tribal Policeman that arrests her; to highlight how the anti-black bias of the American Justice system is matched (it not outweighed) by its bias against indigenous peoples; to place Tookie under the book’s first (of many) Sentences - the book’s title is the only place where I felt wordplay came into effect; to allow Tookie to grow in literary confidence via a dictionary gifted to her by her old English teacher (and unofficial school guardian/mentor) and by extensive reading while under that sentence.

The majority of the book takes place over the period November 2 2019 to November 2 2020 - and to be honest for some time felt like a different book. I am aware that most Americans drive automatics so I guess it makes sense that authors struggle with gear shifts? Tookie (by now released from prison and married to Pollux) has taken a job at a Minnesota bookshop, a bookshop which is, to all intents and purposes, the real life Birchbark bookshop (complete with birchbark canoe, confessional booth and a speciality in Indigenous books and art) run by Louise Erdich - who rather cleverly I felt appears as a side character in her own book. One of the bookshop’s most notorious customers Flora - a wannabe Indigenous - has died but continues to visit the store as a ghost, her presence known largely to Tookie. Flora we find, via her daughter, died reading a book called “The Sentence: An Indian Captivity” and Tookie comes to believe that one sentence in the book

From there the book interleaves (sometimes I have to say rather awkwardly) a number of strands:

Observational humour and insight on running a bookshop

Comments on literature - the bookshop workers commonly recommending books to or discussing them with their customers

Observations on life as a native American in modern America - and in particular on interactions with non-indigenous people, including those who believe firmly they are not just empathetic to your plight but even (like Flora) somehow are part of it.

Indigenous and tribal customs, beliefs and folklore, particularly around death - I must admit that I admired the concepts of these sections a lot more than I either really understood or enjoyed them

Tookie’s relationship with Pollux and with his brother’s rebellious daughter Hetta (who regards Pollux as her Dad) - Hetta arrives with a baby and also with another rather bizarre storyline about a shameful part she took in a film.

The lived experience of the pandemic - I must admit I struggled for different reasons to identify with these sections as they really did not match my UK experience of strict and lengthy complete lockdowns. Partly this is because (and this was clearly an important moment for the author as she has herself - as character - remark on it) the bookshop manages to get its staff identified as a critical workers - but even putting this to one side characters seem largely free to move around in a way only possible in the UK if you were one of the people setting the lockdown rules and thus (it seems in your own head if not according to the law) exempt from them.

Political commentary - as the City of Minnesota is torn apart by the George Floyd murder (which happened in the town)

A combined ghost and mystery story as Tookie seeks to understand why Flora is haunting her - and eventually discovers (via it has to be said a set of connections which for me were both obscurely supernaturally and heavily coincidental) not just that but something more of her own identity (this latter involves yet another of the clunky gear shifts).

Overall this is an ambitious and very different, if far from perfect book which makes an interesting addition to the longlist.