Books › The Plague of Doves
The Plague of Doves
352 pages
A haunting, polyphonic tapestry of a town where the ghosts of the past sit at the table with the living.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like sitting at the feet of a master storyteller as they unravel the tangled, blood-soaked roots of a community. The narrative takes a meandering, polyphonic path, shifting between distinct, unforgettable voices that span generations of Ojibwe and white families in North Dakota. It is a deeply atmospheric experience, steeped in a mood that is at once mythic, melancholic, and surprisingly wry. The prose is lush and earthy, capturing both the profound weight of historical injustice and the vibrant, messy reality of everyday survival and love. It will deeply satisfy readers who love sweeping, interconnected sagas where the past is never truly past, and where every family secret is a thread in a much larger, darker tapestry.
- Mood
- atmospheric
- melancholic
- mythic
- haunted
- Tone
- lyrical
- elegiac
- wry
- empathetic
- Pace
- meandering
- Themes
- generational trauma · weight of history · interconnected communities · power of storytelling · legacy of violence
- The writing
- Richly textured and polyphonic, blending mythic, oral storytelling traditions with sharp, earthy realism.
- The arc
- Begins in the shadow of a haunting historical trauma, weaving through the tangled, often humorous complexities of interconnected lives before arriving at a devastating, clarifying truth.
- Who it's for
- Readers who savor sweeping, multi-generational sagas and lyrical prose that unearths the deep, tangled roots of a community.
Content notes
- murder
- lynching
- racial violence
- generational trauma
About the book
Louise Erdrich's mesmerizing new novel, her first in almost three years, centers on a compelling mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives. Evelina Harp is a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, who is prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. Nobody understands the weight of historical injustice better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a thoughtful mixed blood who witnesses the lives of those who appear before him, and whose own love life reflects the entire history of the territory. In distinct and winning voices, Erdrich's narrators unravel the stories of different generations and families in this corner of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by history, the two communities' collective stories finally come together in a wrenching truth revealed in the novel's final pages.The Plague of Doves is one of the major achievements of Louise Erdrich's considerable oeuvre, a quintessentially American story and the most complex and original of her books.
Description from Open Library.
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