Though I haven’t even come close to reading most of Erdrich’s books, the four or five that I have read I have very much liked. They are usually serious and historical and related to tribal lands and culture. This book, published in 2024, was quite different.

It’s a little hard to categorize so I will quote from a review in The Guardian (which, by the way, has excellent book reviews) that describes the book as “part romcom, part overblown family saga, part cli-fi warning, part absurdist heist, part small-town satire, all tumbling out amid the turmoil of the 2008 financial crash.”

If that doesn’t sound like a Louise Erdrich book, you’re right, but it’s funny and moving and well written and real. You just have to accept that she’s doing something a little bit different here.

The teenage characters are immersed in a love triangle, and the adult characters in this rural North Dakota Town are also entangled in the love web because, well, it’s a really small town. The sugar beet industry is almost a main character, and the land is what ties– or perhaps snarls–them all together.

The Guardian review goes on the describe this book as a “mash up of The Archers (a BBC radio soap opera) and Schitt’s Creek,” which is a great description.

Not a perfect book, but an enjoyable read with a powerful voice and compelling characters trying to do right in a very specific time (2008) and place (beet farm central).