| The Plague of Doves: A Novel (P.S.) |  | Author: Louise Erdrich
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $14.99
Buy New: $10.19
You Save: $4.80 (32%)
Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 1663704
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0060515139
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780060515133
ASIN: 0060515139
Publication Date: June 1, 2009 (In 142 Days)
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet published
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Product Description
A beautiful, compelling, utterly original new novel from one of the most important American writers of our time. Pluto, North Dakota, is a town on the verge of extinction. Its unsavory origins -- which lie in white greed -- contain the seeds of its demise. Here, everybody is connected -- by love or friendship, by blood, and, most importantly, by the burden of a shared history. Evelina Harp, a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, is growing up on the reservation. She is prone to falling hopelessly in love, most notably with her cousin, Corwin Peace, a misfit with a late-discovered talent for music, and then with her teacher, Sister Maria Anita Buckendorf, a godzilla-like nun whose frank acceptance of herself is irresistible. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history; listening enraptured to his tales Evelina learns of a horrific crime that has marked both Ojibwe and whites, whose fates have been inextricably bound ever since.Nobody understands the weight of that crime better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a half breed from Pluto, who also suffers from pains in the love department; as a judge on the reservation, he keeps watch over its inhabitants and recounts their lives with compassion and rare insight. In distinct and winning voices, Evelina and Judge Coutts unravel the intertwining stories of their families, their friends, and their lovers, the descendents of both the perpetrators and victims of the historic crime. Louise Erdrich's characteristically graceful prose and sense of the comic and the tragic sweep readers along to the surprising conclusion of this stunning novel, a portrait of the complex allegiances, passions, and drama of a haunting land and its all-too-human people.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 34 more reviews...
 She has created a masterpiece....again! December 22, 2008
I read tracks years ago, and was so taken with the book that I named everything on my computer after characters in the book so I wouldn't forget them (I realize that is a tad odd). Anyway, a friend just got me this book and I have to say, it rivaled the above mentioned and I would recommend it to anyone.
 Would rather that it was published as an anthology. December 14, 2008
First off, let me give credit where credit is due. The book is stylistically very good, lyrical, descriptive, and generally highfalutin'. The characters and the situations she writes about are individually very interesting and absorbing. There's crime, mystery, lesbians, and a host of other interesting albeit random things in Erdrich's book.
Now for the bad part- the disjointed nature of the book makes it painfully obvious that she took short stories and haphazardly stitched them together in order to market a novel. At the end, after all the connections between the characters and their actions had been revealed, and the initial joy of having finally understood what was going on passed, I was left feeling cold, empty, and unenthusiastic.
In the end, this book has neither a cohesive plot nor theme, and no character is developed to the extent that it even qualifies as a novel.
Beautiful stories, not a novel November 29, 2008
The Art of Getting Well: Maximizing Health and Well-being When You Have a Chronic Illness
I have loved Louise Erdrich for years, ever since I found Love Medicine in the 80s. She tells amazing stories about her overlooked people, the Indians of the North Plains. She writes with stunning attention to detail that makes every scene and character come alive. She faces terrifying history and powerful emotions without flinching.
Over the years, I have really liked The Crown of Columbus and many of her others. Lately, she seemed to have lost something, or maybe I was finding some of the stories repetitious. But The Plague of Doves, to me, contains her best stories in years. Reading this book, you will spend equal amounts of time crying, laughing, and imagining the vivid worlds she unfolds.
Unfortunately, you will also spend time trying to figure out who the characters are and how they relate to each other, and even in what time period each story takes place. Plague of Doves really isn't a novel; it's a collection of loosely connected stories. The characters who are central at the end are completely different from the ones you grab onto at the beginning. You want to find out what happens to Evelina and Corwin and others, but you won't, really.
But if you treat it as a collection of stories, I feel confident you will love it. These are truly powerful, some of the best I've ever read.
Surrendering to a Skilled Author November 23, 2008
My first time reading Louise Erdrich, well, second if I were to count starting over with the same book: by the fire in the afternoon, instead of just before bed. This was a lovely experience to share, told like a series of meetings between complex friends, the way we get to know our own histories and assocoiates.
The author was in total control of my impressions, sympathies, and prejudices. The sexuality, vivid in its personal and interpretive nature caused me to blush, to feel joy, to squirm, to laugh and to feel restfulness. Look for the sound of humanity played by a violin, but heard through the author's mastery of words.
I thoroughly enjoyed the critical and highly intuitive look at an upstart rural religion, as if the religion itself were one of the many literary characters. Every part of the book: the landscapes, the town, the stores, the coffe shop, were knowable in their own right, but not overdone.
The Plague of Doves November 11, 2008
A very powerful writer although book was at times hard to follow and got mired down in sexual content. Still all in all a good read.
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