LaRose audiobook

He was extremely adept, had started hunting small game with his grandfather at the age of seven. Landreaux took the shot with fluid confidence. When the buck popped away he realized he'd hit something else--there had been a blur the moment he squeezed the trigger. Only when he walked forward to investigate and looked down did he understand that he had killed his neighbor's son. Louise Erdritch uses a wide palette. She draws a core event in strong lines, then brings together a diverse range of textures, shapes and colors, mixing, matching, highlighting, smudging, lightening and darkening to make an amazing picture, more mural than something readily contained inside a frame. We know from the little text that precedes the shooting that Landreaux Iron's family and Peter Ravich's family are close. Their wives are half-sisters. Their children play together. They share and trade with each other, and the families help each other out. Faced with the horror of Dusty Ravich's accidental death, Landeaux, seeking to atone, looks for guidance in tradition, and in a sweat lodge ceremony arrives at a solution. Landreaux and his wife, Emmaline, would give their son, LaRose, to the Raviches. Louise Erdrich - from NPR LaRose Iron is a very special eight-year-old, with a name that goes back generations. One of the brightest colors in LaRose is family history. The history which runs in his veins is manifest in kindness and wisdom far beyond his years. He's a great kid and you will love him. We see back to 1839, when the first LaRose was a girl, sold by her desperate mother for food. We follow her journey. There are looks back to the history of several other characters, with particular focus on their experiences in BIA schools. I wanted to write something with LaRose, I had the title—I always have the title. The rest of the book really collects the stories, the language, the characters, they collect around the title. So I knew I would write about LaRose. I had forgotten, though, that there was a LaRose far back in our family history. I really don't know anything about this LaRose, but I know the approximate dates when she lived. So I constructed a historical set of LaRoses, and then I worked out the traumas and the difficulties and everything until we came to this LaRose. We follow not only the travails of Landreaux, and LaRose having to cope with his abruptly different family situation, but with Emmaline Iron as she yearns to have her son back, and Peter and Nola Ravich as they grieve for their lost child and try to incorporate his replacement. There are wonderful characters beyond. Both the Irons and Raviches have daughters. Maggie Ravich, who we meet as barely a teen, is a particularly fierce and moving personality. Romeo Payat is a person of less than stellar character. He and Landreaux were friends once, but Romeo suffered physical damage as a result of an adolestent adventure Landreaux led, suffered emotional disappointment as well, and spends much of his waking life plotting his revenge. A local good guy of a cleric (carried over from The Round House) struggles with his mission, his sobriety, and his vows. One of Louise Erdrich's many strengths as a novelist is that central to her work is the distinct hue of her Native American culture. Thus her 21st century characters incorporate ancient Ojibwe lore and religion in their lives, just as their 1839 ancestors did, including origin myths. There is considerable magical realism on display. Fantastical things, light and dark, take place. Disembodied, flaming heads pursue their killers. A starry spirit light flies to a welcoming womb and takes root. Astral projection is a reality, although not for all. One character is joined with an owl spirit with positive effects. Another is seen to be hanging out with the spirit of a lost friend. The lines between the material and the spectral have been nicely smudged. Guilt-driven hallucinations highlight several scenes. Did you see what I saw? Was that really there?As she did in her previous opus magnum, The Round House, Erdrich mixes in a bit of sparkle in the form of secular cultural lore. In the last book, it was Star Trek NG. Here, kids quote from Blade Runner and reference robot flicks. Older Western culture colors the native experience as well. Xenophon's Anabasis and William Ernest Henley's poem Invictus tint the historical portraits.Contemporary (1999-2002) reality offers up a rich store of material as well. The lie-based Operation Enduring Freedom finds an echo in personal behavior, with consideration of the benefits of disarmament. Y2K figures in as well, with one character going a bit Y2Krazy overpreparing. In a recent interview with Claire Hoffman for Goodreads, Erdrich says: Well, the book really is about disaster in some ways. On the first page you thought something would happen, but not what did happen. And this is the same thing that happened with Y2K: We thought something would happen, everyone was prepared, and then what happened was 9/11. Gripes? Well, only one, really. Erdrich yields to an impulse to insult one particular religious institution with a juvenile bit of low humor. Not that I do not enjoy some pre-ad yucks, and not that I am a huge fan of organized religion. But it seemed out of keeping with the rest of the book, without adding anything worthwhile.There are some lines that run throughout that you might want to keep an eye on. Losing children (whether accidentally, or accidentally on purpose) is popular here, which certainly highlights the importance of community ties and maintaining a wide family network. Opacity of spirit darkens the scene for this or that character from time to time. (That's always the struggle—where is the balance between the decency and brutality? And that's a struggle that is embodied in Romeo. ) The challenges of coping with being dealt a lousy hand figure large. (I tried to not make it about grief and instead make it about the way people live.) But the primary line running through LaRose is redemption. Making things right, emotionally and spiritually if not always physically, is a challenge for more than just Landreaux. Louise Erdrich not only tells amazing stories, she tells them with a lyricism, with a beauty that is rare, rich, textured, and ecstatic. She mixes the contemporary with the historical, wisdom with foolishness, crimes with punisments, individual and communal, guilt with redemption, violence with justice, beauty with ugliness, the mundane with the magical, tragedy with comedy. You might have to mentally step back a few paces, maybe take a spot on a cushioned bench far enough away from this large image to fully appreciate it. Then move closer to give individual sections a finer look. There is a lot to see, and all of it is wonderful. In a rare feat, Louise Erdich has followed one great book with another. LaRose is an outstanding novel, engaging, emotionally rewarding, and a definite must read.Publication----------May 10, 2016 (Hardcover)----------April 18, 2017 (Trade Paperback)Review Most recently updates - April 23, 2021=============================EXTRA STUFFLinks to the author’s personal and FB pagesErdrich's personal site redirects to the site Birchbark Books. She owns the store.The poem Invictus is cited in the bookAs is Xenophon's Anabasis, an ancient tale of a great journey that informs the experiences of the first LaRoseOther Louise Erdrich novels I have reviewed-----2021 - The Sentence-----2020 - The Night Watchman-----2017 - Future Home of the Living God-----2010 - Shadow Tag-----2012 - The Round House -----2008 - The Plague of Doves -----2005 - The Painted DrumDon't miss Ron Charles's magnificent review of this book at the Washington PostNovember 23, 2016 - LaRose is named to the NY Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2016March 16, 2017 - LaRose wins the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction

An accident that results in a child's death, sets the course of another child's life, LaRose. The impact to the two families and their complex and dynamic relationships that are changed. LaRose is forced into the role of healer: to help each family cope with the death of the child by being the core of each families existence. What we discover is the history of LaRoses through the generations and the power and spiritual qualities each have been endowed with.So lavishly written with Indian folklore of shape shifters and spirits from the past. Rich in sentiment with themes of grief, forgiveness and redemption are woven throughout this rich tapestry. The structure of the story alternates between different characters and different times.This was magnificent. Now baptized into the Erdrich world, I look forward to getting my hands and eyes on all she has written. 5 ★

A tragic event , forever affecting two families happens in the second paragraph of the book and shapes this story, immersing the reader into the grief that is shared by them. One child is dead , one is alive , and the two families are torn apart. This sadness hangs in the air like one of those days when it's so humid it's hard to breathe. It's difficult to read at times because Erdrich makes you feel their pain. Her beautiful language takes you to the dark places where their grief has taken them. Amidst the darkness, though, there is the light of LaRose who knows what to do to save his two families. "Our son will be your son now......It's the old way." With this we are drawn into the Ojibwe culture, their religion with a foot hold in the world of their native beliefs as well as the present day Catholicism. The sweat lodges , the pipes , the "old way" of atonement which allows a family to give their five year old son to the family that has lost theirs. The past touches the present in so many ways as it is interspersed throughout in the stories of the other LaRoses, in the past relationships of some of the characters, in the "old ways " that stay and through the spirits of the past.This is such a beautifully told story and I really can't understand why this is my first book by Louise Erdrich. For years , I of course knew who she is , and always found something else to read . I have owned a copy of Round House for ages and just never got to it but I plan to change that soon. Highly, highly recommended !Thanks to HarperCollins and Edelweiss and to Louise Erdrich for this achingly beautiful story.

Death + Depression + Drugs + Revenge + Rebirth + Renewal = Spellbinding StorytellingIn the opening pages of Louise Erdrich’s unforgettable new novel, Landreaux Iron is hunting a buck in the North Dakota forest. When he shoots, he discovers, to his horror, that he’s killed his neighbour’s five-year-old son, Dusty.What happens then is remarkable. Landreaux and his wife Emmaline, following an old Ojibwe tradition, decide to give their own son, LaRose (who’s the same age as Dusty), to the boy’s grief-stricken parents, Pete and Nola, to raise as their own. This changes the lives of everyone involved. LaRose, of course, is yanked out of one environment (complete with loving siblings) and transplanted into another (which comes with a nasty sister, Maggie). Landreaux, an alcoholic, must deal with his feelings of guilt. And Nola, Emmaline’s embittered half-sister, spirals further into bitterness and depression. Meanwhile, Romeo, a figure from Landreaux’s childhood who’s always loved Emmaline, uses the event to concoct a Machiavellian revenge scheme. As if this weren’t complex enough, Erdrich goes back 160 years and interweaves the stories of OTHER ancestral LaRoses, mostly female figures who have healing and restorative powers. Erdrich takes her time in setting up the scenes, characters and time periods. The result is a fascinating patchwork quilt of a novel, whose pattern is only obvious when you pull away and see how beautifully it’s been constructed. But unlike many of her other books, Erdrich doesn’t always make it easy by providing a character/narrator’s name and time period at the start of each chapter.Don’t know who a character is? Read on; he or she will probably pop up in another 50 pages. It helps that the prose is so incredible. It’s lyrical (Erdrich is also a poet) but never pretty for its own sake, never showy. It’s direct, tough, and confident enough to mix myth and everyday pop culture references.I think above all it’s the voices of Erdrich’s characters that are so impressive. She has a way of getting inside her people’s skins, showing you their grievances, what makes them laugh, their deep-rooted pain and their all-too-human foibles. But she never judges. They’re all part of the panorama of humanity. (Even The Wizard Of Oz author Frank L. Baum comes under scrutiny for some appallingly racist comments he once wrote.)Before reading this book, I never thought I’d be interested in entering the mind of a scrawny, brilliant near-psychopath who siphons gas out of cars, steals medication from seniors (oh but he gets his comeuppance during one scene!) and has a thing for Condaleeza Rice. Nor did I understand the effects of a parent’s depression on children until this book. And did Erdrich really get my heart pounding reading about a girls’ volleyball game? You betcha. She also created one recurring comic/horrific image that is too unbelievable and awesome to spoil. But you'll know it when you see it.Not everything works, mind you. The middle section is a little baggy and wanders narratively. The idea of multiple LaRoses never pays off in a way I think she intends. And not all the characters are as compelling as Romeo, that scrawny, Iago-like villain, and Maggie, Nola’s disturbed but fierce and brilliant daughter. But I have to say I loved spending time in Erdrich’s world. There’s something comforting about it. In the same way that all-knowing spirits and ghosts often enter a scene, she is there to show us life in all its gorgeous, haunting and enduring pain and beauty.Wounds and death are inevitable; but forgiveness and healing (and maybe a bit of earthy humour) are always preferable to anger and revenge. Not a bad takeaway.***If Goodreads offered half-stars, I'd rate this as a 4.5. But it definitely makes me want to go back and read more Erdrich. I agree with Robbie (Snotchocheez) who says this could win the Pulitzer Prize. I'd go further and say that Erdrich could, in time, win the Nobel Prize. Like Faulkner, she's created an entire fictional universe, and she's giving voice to a people whose voices have been silenced. Plus, she's one hell of a storyteller.

Landreaux Iron accidentally kills a child while out hunting a buck.He and his wife, Emmaline, follow an old tribal tradition, and give their son, LaRose, away to the horrifically bereaved neighbor's. Peter and Nola, are crazy, sick, in pain...emotionally, physically, spiritually ...in complete shock....faced with unbearable AGONY. Their other daughter is left hanging to figure out her emotions alone, too. Her parents are so distraught ... they don't have it in them to help their other child grieve and heal. Thank God I'll be discussing this novel in a small book group soon...I've been pretty 'distraught' myself from reading this book. The famous line...."Our Son will be your son now"....has haunted me for over a week.WHY??? Why create another tragedy? Was this custom REALLY carried out? Did some Native American tribes actually give a child away - to pay a debt- to atone - their mistake of killing another couples child? What about the poor CHILD??? LaRose is a victim. Who cares how fancy his name is-- or how spiritual? It's a pretty big obligation to be a healer of two families when you are a five year old child. Who is going to heal HIM??? My God... I feel a little bad for even saying this....( forgive me)....but in Judaism, this is not how we atone. I have such little respect for this custom-- that everything else I read in this novel- was on top of that. I HAD TO DEAL WITH **MY** emotional anger, nausea, judgment, sadness, more anger, and sit with questions of WHY? WHY? WHY?Ok.... Setting MY PERSONAL FEELINGS ASIDE.....Am I glad I read this novel? Yes and no. I'm not sure it was healthy - for me..........and I saw the ending coming a mile away..........I actually liked the historical family stories about each of the different 'LaRose' characters....( 4 women, and one young boy)....But I just had a hard time with LaRose ( the young boy), taking on the role of spiritual healer. It was fun having Romeo return - from "The Round House"....and the triangle story between he Landreaux and Emmaline...is enough drama for an entire novel itself...and nobody can say that Louise Erdrich can't write - she's as great as the master of writers we have writing today....BUT THIS WAS book was emotionally gripping - painful for me --- I took things to personal....( just being honest)....I still want to scream ....WE JUST DON'T DO THAT....give our kid away under any circumstance!!! DON'T DO IT! What a god awful tradition!!! Was there some brightness in this book-- yes, of course...with an uplifting ending...But....but honestly it brought up too many painful feelings from my own childhood ....I've debated for days how I might write this review and what I'd rate it.Some days....I say..."well, of course it's a 5 star novel"Other days I say... "It wasn't a 5 star experience for me though - I took things too personal - to a point where 1 day I 'was' sick. I've feel a need for more clarity about this old tribal tradition. I tried to find some facts on Google....only to come up with nothing. I'll be in a small book group discussion with a few other members on this site soon...Others are welcome to join. All that is required is that you read the book.Contact me or....Sara ( with the yellow teacup) 3.5 stars.

"We are chased by what we do to others and then in turn what they do to us. We’re always looking behind us, or worried about what comes next."When one tragic mistake is made, it will reverberate endlessly and affect the lives of two families. How does one atone for a wrong done to another? Will sacrifice and profound pain inflicted upon oneself and loved ones make things right? After accidentally shooting a young boy while out hunting, Landreaux Iron seeks help and comfort from his Ojibwe culture. The answer for him seems to be found in handing over his and wife Emmaline’s own beloved child to the family that has now lost their son. Peter and Nola Ravich accept this ultimate sacrifice. "Our son will be your son now." And so this novel begins with such heartache and nearly unbearable grief. This book is beautifully written. The emotions of each character felt so very real to me. Each person affected by this horrible accident handled his or her grief in very different ways. Louise Erdrich does a superb job of showing us how these complex individuals dealt with their emotions and circumstances. Family dynamics are emphasized both within each family and across the two families. There are a lot of characters to keep track of here, but I didn’t find this to be too difficult. We are given the opportunity to explore some of these more than others. Maggie Ravich, sister to the deceased little boy, accepts her new brother, LaRose, much more readily than I would have expected. LaRose is the fifth LaRose going back several generations - each one being gifted with special healing powers. This LaRose seems to be no exception as his presence within the Ravich family seems to have a slowly building but restorative effect. The dynamics between a grieving mother, Nola, and her daughter Maggie made me quite heartsick at times. I didn’t much care for Nola and I’m not certain that this was due in full to her actions as a depressed mother – we don’t really know what she was like before the tragedy occurred. I just couldn’t bear to see the relationship between mother and daughter. Too much was put on that young girl who I grew to care about – probably more so than any other character in this book. I loved the relationship between Maggie and the Iron girls, Snow and Josette. They took her under their wings during her time of need. Woven throughout the current day narrative is one which introduces us to the first LaRose. Her story was appealing, if not a bit strange! There is a lot of mysticism throughout this book, which may not be to the taste of some readers but is necessary to understanding the Ojibwe culture. We also learn about Landreaux’s history and his former bond with a broken man named Romeo. A past adventure gone horribly wrong will drive a wedge between these two men that will have lifetime effects. As Romeo seeks revenge so many years later, it will shake the fragile lives that LaRose has been mending so painstakingly. Here is where the story becomes quite tense, but at the same time falls apart for me a bit. I don’t want to divulge any information, but will just say that I found the actions of some characters to be slightly unbelievable in the later part of the book. Everything seemed more rushed as the climax was reached, and I didn’t feel like the resolution was as realistic and solid as I would have liked. Maybe I missed something here; I can’t quite pinpoint the problem for me personally. Overall, I found LaRose to be quite gripping despite my quibble with the ending. I cannot agree with how the tragedy was handled – the giving up of one child to make amends for the loss of another, or seeking revenge for past misdeeds – but it did manage to teach me that a wrong cannot be made right. Forgiveness, however, is essential to healing. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars.

Louise Erdrich’s new novel, “LaRose,” begins with the elemental gravitas of an ancient story: One day while hunting, a man accidentally kills his neighbor’s 5-year-old son.Such a canyon of grief triggers the kind of emotional vertigo that would make anyone recoil. But you can lean on Erdrich, who has been bringing her healing insight to devastating tragedies for more than 30 years. Where other writers might have jumped from this boy’s death into a black hole of despair — or, worse, slathered on a salve of sentimentality — Erdrich proposes a breathtaking response.“LaRose” plays out in the Ojibwe territory of North Dakota immortalized in more than a. . . . To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

Landreaux Iron, a North Dakota Ojibwe Indian, is happily married to Emmaline and raising five children - including the 'adopted' son of his childhood friend Romeo. One day Landreaux - a former alcohol and drug user - is hunting, and accidently kills Dusty, the 5-year-old son of his neighbors Peter and Nola Ravich. The Ravichs are devastated and Landreaux and Emmaline - hewing to an old Indian custom - make the overwhelmingly heartbreaking decision to give the grieving couple their own young son, LaRose. Nola, though almost insane from grief, is somewhat comforted by LaRose, a sweet boy who - like his namesake ancestors - has shaman-like abilities. Still, both Peter and Nola fantasize about revenge-killing Landreaux. Meanwhile, Emmaline and Landreaux are torn up by the loss of LaRose and the boy misses his family. Before long Peter Ravich- worried about what this is doing to LaRose - arranges for the youngster to be shared by both families. This arrangement is difficult and does little to heal the rift between the Iron and Ravich parents but it does bring the children of both households closer. Middle-schooler Maggie Ravich, whose disprespectful hijinks cause trouble both at school and at home, bonds with LaRose, who seems able to (somewhat) soothe Nola's anguish. And Josette and Snow Iron take their 'stepsister' Maggie under their wing, encourage her to play volleyball, and give her boyfriend advice when the time comes. The devastating events of the story put pressure on both the Iron and Ravich marriages as an undercurrent of blame pervades both relationships. To deal with their anguish, the Irons rely on both their Indian heritage and their Catholic faith, guided by rugged ex-Marine priest, Father Travis. Nola, who's close to suicidal also consults the priest, who can do little to soothe her agony. Interspersed with the story of the current LaRose are historical scenes depicting the life of the original LaRose - an Indian girl sold to an abusive merchant by an alcoholic mother. This first LaRose's story is harrowing but she perseveres (in part) by using her mystical abilities, which are passed on to her descendants. Scenes of a disembodied head following LaRose (and her companion) when she goes on the run are both humorous and disturbing. The story also depicts Landreaux's childhood, during which he was forced to attend a white-run boarding school meant to erase his Indian culture. At school Landreaux met Romeo, who was intensely loyal until a rift formed between the boys. Romeo, who's partially crippled, grows up to be a drug-using ne'er do well who steals and scams for a living. For various reasons Romeo is jealous and resentful of Landreaux and tries to use 'the real facts' about Dusty's death to destroy him. The novel has some comic relief when Indian elders living in a nursing home joke with each other (mostly about sex) and get revenge on Romeo for stealing their painkillers. The elders also tell engaging 'creation' tales from their Indian culture, which are fascinating and instructive to young LaRose. This is an excellent story about grief, remorse, revenge and healing...as well as children's angst as they mature and find their place in the world. The loyalty and love among the Iron and Ravich siblings and step-siblings is very moving and the climax and denouement of the story are believable and satisfying. I would highly recommend this book to fans of literary fiction.You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....

Few contemporary fiction authors are able to capture the Native American experience as eloquently, if raggedly, as Louise Erdrich. When she's "on", her prose soars heavenward, eagle-like, providing an aerie-d panorama of rez life. Occasionally though, her gauzy observations, while often gorgeous, serve to obfuscate rather to clarify, like a sweat house experience gone awry. LaRose encapsulates everything I love (and everything I'm less enamored with) about Ms. Erdrich's stylizing. The tragic set-up to balance the whole novel on? Pretty much perfect (and given the Erdrich Ojibwe filter, simultaneously foreign yet totally relatable): Two families (related by the half-sisterhood of their matriarchs, whose land tracts abut each other, straddling North Dakota reservation land) are wracked when the father of one family (with closer ties to the Ojibwe Indians) kills the son of the other family in a freak hunting accident outside their homes. To assuage guilt (and follow Ojibwe precedent), the Iron family offers up to the other family their own youngest son, named LaRose, to replace the killed one. The story splinters and filigrees off in myriad directions from there (some with crystal-clarity, others in gauzy, poetic obfuscation.) Some of the characterizations are like etched in acid (Landreaux Iron, of course his son LaRose, his daughters Snow and Josette, his strange childhood adversary Romeo: all stick with you long after you're done reading), though others that should stick with you (the parents of the slain boy Peter and Nola, the mother of LaRose (Emmaline Iron), the reservation Catholic priest Father Travis) are emotional ciphers. There is still so much to chew upon here. Family dynamics (both Ojibwe and non-Indian), rez drug culture and ever-perpetuating hopelessness, the way we deal with grief, Native-American history and lore: all whipped into a satisfying stew mopped up with bannock (Ojibwe) fry-bread. I don't know if I'll ever be able to completely cozy up to Ms. Erdrich's prose (the quotation-mark dumping and deliberate gauzy storytelling always give me pause before cracking one of her books), but, with some reservations (no pun intended) I recommend LaRose. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this one win a Pulitzer next year (to go along with her dozens of other citations from the National Book Award to the Library of Congress Prize.) It would be definitely earned.

It is a rare book that can create unbearable tension right from the very first pages. But from the start, it’s obvious that Louise Erdrich is in full charge of her narrative. “When the buck popped away he realized he’d hit something else—there had been a blur the moment he squeezed the trigger. Only when he walked forward to investigate and looked down did he understand that he has killed his neighbor’s son.”Landreaux Iron, an Ojibwe man, a loving husband and father, and a recovering alcoholic, kills his neighbor’s son while stalking a buck. To atone for his actions, he and his life Emmeline agree to share their youngest son LaRose – a 5-year-old boy who is the exact age of the dead son of their neighbors – with the bereaved parents.LaRose is not the first person in the Iron family who has borne that name, a name that is synonymous with mirage. There have been five LaRoses in all, and each of them is special in his or her own way. Erdrich writes, “That name would protect him from the unknown, from what had been let loose with the accident. Sometimes energy of this nature, chaos, ill luck, goes out of the world and begets and begets.”LaRose is called upon to function as the bridge between families, a bridge that heals. Bridges abound in LaRose: the bridge between the traditional and the contemporary, between loss and redemption, between youth and adulthood, between the real world and the mythic one. There are also bridges among the generations, all of whom share hardship and embody a sense of survival.Over the course of this amazing novel, we discover the first LaRose, sold by her mother, misused by her purchaser, and almost annihilated by her Indian body school. She links to the other LaRoses, evolving to the young boy who is the latest link to the tragedies that befall the family. LaRose in his own way is a healer, a Savior. Louise Erdrich has one again created something very special.