It was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well, sang Chuck Berry, a suitable accompaniment to Louise Erdrich’s new novel as it opens with that very thing. Unlike in the song, however, the positive thoughts are not shared among all the guests or, indeed, between the happy couple.
Set in North Dakota, The Mighty Red opens with the courtship of Gary and Kismet, a hilariously awkward proposal from the former, and a grudging acceptance from the latter, mostly because she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. They’re both 18, but she has the hots for Hugo, two years her junior, and their secret trysts allow her to feel that she retains some agency over her life, even when she appears to be so carelessly throwing it away.
Erdrich delights in this oddball trio, describing Kismet’s natural kindness, Hugo’s eccentricity, and Gary’s idiocy with some affection. Around them, she constructs a community still tending to the scars from a tragic incident that took the lives of some high school football players, in which Gary played no small part. However, it’s Crystal, Kismet’s mother, who is the moral heart of the story. A loving and attentive parent, she becomes the focus of an extraordinary scandal on the night before the wedding, but manages to keep her head held high, even as her world is collapsing around her.
The women in this book are forces of nature. Crystal refuses to be shamed, Kismet demands a voice, and Winnie, Gary’s mother, plays the strong matriarch, masquerading the depths of her pain. The men, on the other hand, are mostly dunderheads or thieves, ostensibly wearing the trousers while ignoring the damage they’re inflicting on their families.
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The Mighty Red examines how people can simply give up when their futures appear to be defined by poverty or tedium. Erdrich waits to reveal the details of the incident that precedes the novel’s opening but, when the facts are revealed, they’re distressing. With the scent of rotting beets overpowering every chapter, there’s a timeless quality to this farmland novel. Although it’s set in 2008/09, it feels like it could be relocated to Steinbeck’s era, echoing the depression-era characters of some of that writer’s finest work.
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