NOVEL
Louise Erdrich's new novel is a sequel to 2001's The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, in which the tribal lands of the Ojibwe on the Northern Plains were confiscated by scheming land agents. Four Souls opens in the 1920s when Fleur Pillager, one of the dispossessed, sets off for Minneapolis to take her revenge. She finds the lavish mansion built from the forests and quarries of her reservation and hires on as a laundress. Soon enough the beautiful Fleur has seduced the owner, John James Mauser, and become his wife. Instead of murdering him outright, she presides with steely disdain over the gradual destruction of his life. Mauser's fortune slips away as he is consumed by guilt, certain that the autism of their son is God's punishment for ravaging tribal lands and taking his careless pleasure with Native American women. When he flees the country, Fleur returns to the reservation. But reclaiming her land—in a daring poker game—turns out to be easier than reclaiming her soul, which has been shriveled by whiskey, hate and city living.
Erdrich masterfully evokes the clash between Native American psychology and modern values, alternating between two narrators. The first is a tribal elder who still understands the magic of an owl's cough ball (a mass of skulls, teeth and other undigestible bits) yet has no power against the lure of new linoleum. The second narrator is Mauser's spinsterish sister-in-law, who, embittered by her fate in society, casts her lot with Fleur. On occasion, Erdrich's lyrical descriptions of Ojibwe beliefs run on and overwhelm the story. But even in these slack moments, she sustains a literary voice like no other, familiar and so foreign at the same time.
By Tawni O'Dell
NOVEL
CRITIC'S CHOICE
When the Chicago Bears drafted Ivan Zoschenko, in the mid-1980s, it was a given that the greatest athlete ever to emerge from Coal Run, Pa., would continue to shed glory on the down-and-out mining town that loved him. Instead a freak accident during a predeparture visit to the mine shaft where his father died years earlier derails his pro career before it begins. Lost without "what I did best," he moves in with his sister, a single mother of three sons, becomes a stolid sheriff's deputy and drowns his sorrows in drink.
O'Dell, who tackled dysfunctional family life in her bestselling first novel, Back Roads, has produced another winner. Her portrayals of the town's blue-collar residents, who remain enamored of Ivan, are pitch-perfect, and Ivan's redemptive relationship with his youngest nephew—who doesn't know or care about his uncle's failed sports-hero past—is charmingly rendered. Combine that with O'Dell's ability to convey the effects—both constricting and rewarding—of the forced intimacy that is small-town living, and a muscular, memorable drama unfolds.
By Mil Millington
NOVEL
Romantic comedies—wait, don't doze off!—tend to be about as surprising as C-SPAN, but here the laughs join plot twists worthy of Curb Your Enthusiasm. When Tom, a ghostwriter, has an affair with the actress whose memoir he is writing, he makes a madcap effort to hide the truth from his girl friend in scorchingly funny scenes: At one point he tries to hide his nudity behind a burning-hot laptop. Millington builds a gag perfectly. Facing down a barroom bully, Tom thinks, "Now he was going to have to damn well learn that I was not the kind of man who was unable to curl up into a ball and whim per while he systematically broke all of my bones."
By C.J. Box
MYSTERY
The events at the center of Box's fourth novel featuring game war den Joe Pickett make the fate of the Donner Party look like a square dance. First a moose, then several head of cattle and finally gruesomely flayed human bodies are found in Saddlestring, Wyo. Before you can say "last roundup," the tiny town has turned into one big crime scene. Inspired by a series of mysterious cattle killings in the 1970s, Box has concocted a narrative with a little of every thing thrown in: crop circles, an escaped grizzly bear, Native American mysticism. Although the plot feels overstuffed, the characters are compelling. As usual, corrupt Sheriff Barnum tries to stymie likable Joe's involvement in the investigation, while hermit falconer Nate Romanowski lends Joe a hand. Box does a good job of keeping the reader off balance, hinting that otherworldly elements may be responsible for the spate of violence. (As Nate cryptically remarks, "Sometimes, the laws are broken and things spill over from one level to the next.") Box vividly evokes life in the West, and the surprises he springs keep you guessing right to the end—and a little beyond.
Generation Kill
Rolling Stone contributing editor Evan Wright spent two months with an elite Marine unit that barreled into Iraq in March 2003, leading the way for U.S. forces rolling into Baghdad.
HOW DID YOU GET THE SOLDIERS TO ACCEPT YOU? I'd worked for Hustler magazine, so they were like, "Cool!"
HOW DID YOU FEEL WHEN THE SHOOTING STARTED? I had worried I might just be doing a story about these guys in a Humvee on a road trip to Baghdad. So as a reporter, you start getting shot at and part of you says, "Great!"
DID YOU USE A WEAPON? In a hostile area, you don't want to have a guy sitting around trying to get quotes. So they gave me a rifle, but I didn't use it. I felt safer with a notebook in my hand.
DO YOU HAVE NIGHTMARES NOW? No, but when I'm driving at night, I'm always on the lookout for gunfire.
WHO SHOULD PLAY YOU IN THE UPCOMING HBO FILM? Kiefer Sutherland. He has a great face for projecting stressed-out and confused.
- Contributors:
- Lee Aitken,
- Amy Waldman,
- Kyle Smith,
- Edward Karam.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
