The Sentence

In this stunning and timely novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage and of a woman's relentless errors.

Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading 'with murderous attention,' must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

“Powerful, endearing - GuardianA delight - IndependentAs compassionate as she is sharp-sightedA bewitching novel . . . Strange, enchanting and funny - New York TimesAmong Erdrich's most magical novels - Washington PostA cathartic and comforting story that book lovers will gobble up - Real Simple”

Louise Erdrich is the rarest kind of writer, as compassionate as she is sharp-sighted -- Anne Tyler
A novel that reckons with ghosts - of both specific people but also the shadows resulting from America's violent, dark habits Kirkus (starred review)
Scintillating . . . More than a gripping ghost story, The Sentence offers profound insights into the effects of the global pandemic and the collateral damage of systemic racism. It adds up to one of Erdrich's most . . . illuminating works to date Publishers Weekly (Starred review)
Erdrich is one of the greatest living American writers Guardian
The poet laureate of the contemporary Native American experience Mail on Sunday
No one can break your heart and fill it with light all in the same book - sometimes in the same paragraph - quite like Louise Erdrich Tampa Bay Times
'Strange, enchanting and funny: a work about motherhood, doom, regret and the magic - dark, benevolent and every shade in between - of words on paper' The New York Times
'The story is, perhaps above all, about the peace available to us in books like this' The New Yorker
'[Tookie's] journey, captured in Erdrich's expert prose, is a cathartic and comforting story that book lovers will gobble up' Real Simple
'Erdrich writes with conviction' TLS
[A[ powerful, endearing novel . . . [The Sentence] resolves in small moments of personal redemption and familial love, allowing for hope amid tragedy -- Erica Wagner Guardian
'Promises to be both funny and profound' Daily Mail
'As the owner of a store herself, Erdrich knows whereof she writes, and her off-beat ghost story is in part a love letter to books and the shops that sell them. It also captures with compelling fidelity a year of personal and national dread and anguish - yet still pulls off a happy ending' Daily Mail
'Erdrich's exploration of racial appropriation, and her treatment of such forgery as the stuff of horror, is fascinating. Tookie feels the ghost of Flora breathing in her ear - "let me in" - and at one point, trying to claw her way inside Tookie's body' Independent
'Literature lovers will savour the conversations between booksellers and their customers...Erdrich depicts white privilege while at the same time confirming identity politics is never straightforward' Literary Review
'A delight, a thought-provoking work of art' The Independent
The real and the supernatural lock eyes in the deeply layered, immersive novel Irish Times
Masterfully written... tackle[s] [a] serious subject matter but also deliver[s] witty writing that makes you laugh out loud Guardian
Words still offer solace in this richly layered novel by Erdrich Daily Mail Must Reads
[A] powerful, endearing novel -- Erica Wagner Guardian
'Few novels capture their times as well as this' The New European

Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the author of many novels as well as volumes of poetry, children's books and a memoir of early motherhood. Her novel The Round House won the National Book Award for Fiction. Love Medicine and LaRose received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and The Night Watchman won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. The Sentence was shortlisted for The Women's Prize for Fiction 2022. Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore. A ghost lives in her creaky old house.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022 PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE NIGHT WATCHMAN ----------------------------------------------------- In this stunning and timely novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage and of a woman's relentless errors.Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence , asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading 'with murderous attention,' must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation and furious reckoning. The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written. ------------------------------------ 'Erdrich is one of the greatest living American writers' Guardian 'Strange, enchanting and funny: a work about motherhood, doom, regret and the magic - dark, benevolent and every shade in between - of words on paper' New York Times 'The poet laureate of the contemporary Native American experience' Mail on Sunday

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