BOOK REVIEW: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich is known for her Pulitizer Prize winning book The Night Watchman, based on the life of her grandfather.  Avid followers of her work know about her stories of Native Americans in the mid-northern US.  My author-reader connection was sealed by my reading of The Sentence.  I am a fan of Erdrich and adore two of the characters in this haunting mystery, Tookie & Pollux.  Any book about a bookstore and its impact on a community in times of trial is a jewel!  Intrigued?  Read on…

The Sentence opens with Tookie, the main character, body-snatching for love.  Tookie lived with her love and the body was her lover’s ex-lover.  Little did Tookie know, two women conspired and filled a few cavities of this dead body with drugs to be taken by Tookie across state line, a federal crime.  What was she thinking… she wasn’t! Tookie ended up serving seven years of sixty year sentence.  While Tookie was serving this sentence a former teacher sent her a dictionary to dig through… this opened the door to reading, everything and anything she could get her hands on while incarcerated. 

When she was released from jail, she landed a job as a bookseller in a bookshop in Minneapolis.  From this point, the plot takes off: Tookie marries Pollux, the police officer who originally arrested her in her crime mentioned above;  a “favorite” patron dies; this patron’s ghost haunts the store, especially Tookie; COVID pandemic strikes; George Floyd loses his life at the knee of a police officer; Tookie and Pollux become “grandparents” to their niece’s baby.  Relationships are created, tested, and strengthened through stresses of life during this anxiety-ridden time.  The humor was the seasoning for Tookie’s life, especially with Pollux.  Pollux’s integral role in this book is not to be overlooked.  His character was steady, loving, loyal to his Native American culture and to Tookie; his love language is cooking. 

This book has been called a love letter to book nerds.  There are “tons” of books spoken of throughout the story… but also know, you don’t have to keep a running list!  There are lists in the back of the book!  

 The relationships of love and found family weave through this story.  It is evident that Louise Erdrich is a product of a loving family, which is a strong theme in this beautifully written work.