About the Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK - LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION - A FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION
""A sweeping, tender-hearted epic.""--Harper's Bazaar
In this stunning novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich tells a story of love, natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people's lives.
In the Red River Valley of North Dakota, several lives revolve around a wedding fraught with desire, jealousy, and uncertainty. Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed goth who can't read her own future but will settle for fulfilling his. Her best friend, Hugo, a gentle, red-haired, homeschooled giant, also loves Kismet and is determined to steal her away and build a life together. Kismet's mother, Crystal, drives a truck for Gary's family, and on her nightly runs, tunes in to the darkness of late-night radio, experiences visions of guardian angels, and worries about what's to come, for her daughter and herself.
The Mighty Red is Louise Erdrich at her consummate best. A novel of tender humor, disquietude, yearning, community, and family, it is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. Human time, deep time, Red River time, and geological time are explored alongside the impact of crises in our own time--climate change, the depletion of natural resources, the economic meltdown of 2008.
As with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor.
About the Author :
Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the award-winning author of many novels as well as volumes of poetry, children's books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.
Marin Ireland is a voice artist who has won five Earphones Awards as well as the prestigious Audie Award for Best Female Narration in 2020. She is an award-winning actress known for her starring role in the Broadway show Reasons to Be Pretty, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. She has appeared in a number of off-Broadway shows and television series, including Homeland, Unforgettable, The Killing, The Following, and others.
Review :
"[A] heart-wrenching story of how human lives are susceptible to nature's impact."
-- "People"
"A poignant novel of place."
-- "Washington Post"
"Erdrich is at her best...Erdrich calls on us to heal our frayed bond with the earth and to regard it, as she does, with wonder."
-- "Los Angeles Times"
"[A] finely woven tale of anguish and desire, crimes and healing."
-- "Booklist"
"Erdrich excels at the slow simmer, and once again she delivers a deliciously seductive masterwork."
-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"
"Fearlessly depicting the toughest losses and darkest threats, Erdrich always finds hope."
-- "Oprah Daily"
"In this tender and capacious story, love and tragedy mingle along the river and into the world."
-- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"
