Tuesday, January 15, 2013

52 Books 52 Weeks / Week Ending January 14

THE ROUND HOUSE by Louise Erdrich


"One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning."


The Round House is a coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a novel of family, history, and culture. Included in the afterword is the terrible statistic that “1 in 3 Native women will be raped in her lifetime (and that figure is certainly higher as Native women often do not report rape); 86% of rapes and sexual assaults upon Native women are perpetrated by non-Native men.” Life on the reservation has other challenges such as alcoholism and injustice that affect the daily lives of Native Americans and Erdrich is adept at conveying the Native culture and reservation life.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Fossil by David Brookover

i bought this book on amazon for my kindle.
The book is about a fossil that is uncovered in a cave in Scotland.
Teddi McCoy (FBI agent)and Dex Lowe (Sheriff)are on their way to a seminar in England, when Scotland Yard requests their help with the case. Turns out, the fossil is still alive!!
This is the second book I read by the author and I must say I really do like him! If like supernatural books, this one's for you!

Anonymous said...

The Hot Rock: A Dortmunder Novel by Donald E. Westlake

Dortmunder and his gang of thieves steal (or try to) an emerald. Everything goes wrong and the fun begins.
This book was published in 1970, so it doesn't have alot of the more modern technology that we expect to find. That doesn't detract from the book, it was hilarious! The trouble that Dortmunder and his gang get into as well as the word play is great. I really enjoyed this book.

Unknown said...

It's so great when you find an author that you like, Jaclyn!

I've read some of the Dortmunder books, and love his gang of characters. And sometimes it's fun to go back to an earlier time when we didn't have cell phones, computers and gadgets!