The Round House

A Novel

By: Louise Erdrich

Narrated by: Gary Farmer

Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

National Book Award, Fiction, 2012

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 13-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.

Written with undeniable urgency, and illuminating the harsh realities of contemporary life in a community where Ojibwe and white live uneasily together, The Round House is a brilliant and entertaining novel, a masterpiece of literary fiction. Louise Erdrich embraces tragedy, the comic, a spirit world very much present in the lives of her all-too-human characters, and a tale of injustice that is, unfortunately, an authentic reflection of what happens in our own world today.

©2012 Louise Erdrich (P)2012 HarperCollinsPublishers

Justice in Multiple Colors

I probably read this one a bit too quickly to get everything out of it, but I was fortunate to be guided by the criticism of my student. (Thanks Emily.) As part of a senior honors project, she’s reviewing the book as a potential contemporary work that she could share with her future students.

Emily’s thesis is that this is ultimately a novel about justice, and I’m glad to find my experience of the book confirming that. Joe is a boy, only 13, who has to grapple with how to find justice for his mother, his father and himself after a man rapes his mother. On the one hand, it ought to fall to the American courts to do that. On the other, because there is a gap between that court justice and the power of tribal law, the rapist escapes.

That fundamental clash is exacerbated by the fact that Joe’s father is a Native-American judge. He ought to be able to see justice done, but he’s growing old as the novel moves along, and he finds the law is powerless before a sociopath who’s plotted his crimes carefully. Meanwhile, Joe’s old grandfather tells him stories of Indian justice, of the way tribes dealt with “windigos” who threatened it.

In a [SPOILER] Joe eventually kills the rapist with the help of a friend, also 13. They succeed and recognize the justness of their actions, but there’s a final, troubling moment: the other boy, who’s fired the fatal shot, is killed in a car accident that pertains to a sub-plot around his love for a girl who’s moved away. It’s as if, in the end, we see a third strand of justice, a cosmic, karmic sort.

I’ll leave it to Emily to decide how appropriate this is for her intended audience. There’s perhaps more YA intent to it than I especially love in my own readings, but I think – as Emily shows – there’s also some abiding substance to it.

It’s been years since I got to Love Medicine. Maybe it’s time to get back to that.

about as real as it gets down on the rez

KichiMiigwetch to Gary and Louise, what an amazing duo! more like this, daagaa... from my rez to yours.

Mixed feelings

Typically I enjoy multicultural learning opportunities and this is no exception. I truly enjoyed learning about the native American traditions, stories and law. The author creatively embedded them into the plot. However the story felt plodding and a little slow for my taste. Once I researched some of the symbolism and themes online, my appreciation grew.
Overall I’m glad I listened to this story, but I’m not sure it’s for everyone.

Not her greatest, but a step up from the last few

First of all, look folks, if the narration is too slow for you, speed it up! 1.5x, 1.75...keep going till it's not too slow for you. Gary Farmer is a veteran Native actor who pretty much is in every classic real Indian movie out there, and he's awesome. Maybe you don't like his accent b/c you've never heard people talk on the rez but hey, this is what people sound like. If you can deal with some of the terrible fake Japanese, Russian, Spanish, etc accents read by non-native speakers in tons of typical audiobooks, surely you can get used to his! He does an amazing job, and imo perfectly captured the narrative voice of a kid on the rez during that time period.

That said, I was so disappointed with this book that I'd waited for with so much excitement. It had a great premise, some potentially great characters, and Louise has deserved a huge literary award for decades but been unacceptably overlooked. She's written some of the best historical and contemporary Native literature out there that stands the test of time and builds on itself, too. I figure this one was similar to Scorcese getting an Oscar for Not-his-greatest-movie but really for his body of work that probably should have been awarded sooner (or so people said!).

While I wasn't thrilled at all with her last three books prior to The Round House (which I felt was way better, but certainly not as rich as her earlier work), she remains one of my favorite authors. Whether or not you enjoyed Gary's narration, I'd recommend Tracks, Four Souls, The Last Report on Little No Horse, The Antelope Wife, and The Painted Drum in that order for an amazing audio experience of an unfurling family saga. Except for the first two, they're technically readable on their own, but chronologically they are powerful and so enjoyable in audio. The great late Anna Fields (an early audiobook pioneer) really put her heart in the characters and even learned to correctly pronounce Ojibwe and worked with Louise to try to refine her accent. I honestly was shocked when I found out she was white! Not to be missed.

One of her best!

Loved everything about it, the story, characters, language, emotion. And the author. I am a big Louise Erdrich fan. This is one of her best.

Just ok

struggled to complete listening to it. would not have spent money on it had I known..

Never a Disappointment

I started with La Rose 5 years ago and I have loved EVERY BOOK by Ms Erdrich. I love the way of life and the love of family. As with everyone of Ms. Erdrich’s books, at the end, it seems like a camera is taking in all the main characters and the answers to all the mysteries are revealed as the camera is pulling away. I would like to believe that t really happens that way. I’ll give it a “10”

Great story.

I too found that the narrator talked too slowly for my taste so I set the speed to 1.1 and it was perfect. I loved this story. The author and narrator have the Indian sensibility down pat. If you are a Jim Harrison fan, you will love this book.

Great Book

I listened The Round House on the recommendation of Book Riot. I was pleased to see the Gary Farmer was the narrator. His performance was perfect for the first person character Joe. Highly recommended!

Not a fan of the performance

I enjoyed the story, but not the performance. The narration was monotonous and without inflection.