The Mighty Red

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What to expect

Longlisted for the 2025 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction

'A sweeping, tender-hearted epic' Harper's Bazaar
'In the hands of this master storyteller, everything is effortlessly connected. . . Erdrich always finds hope' Oprah Daily
'The Mighty Red might just be a new American classic' Bookpage

In the Red River Valley of North Dakota, a fraught wedding is taking place.

Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe. Gary thinks Kismet is the answer to his problems. Kismet can't imagine her future, but she will settle for fulfilling his. During a clumsy proposal, Kismet misses her chance to say 'no', and so the die is cast.

Meanwhile Crystal, Kismet's mother, hauls sugar beets for Gary's wealthy family. On her nightly truck drives from the farm, Crystal frets over what the future might hold - both for herself, and her daughter.

Starkly beautiful and vividly written, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendour, from one of our greatest living writers.

Critics Review

'Erdrich excels at the slow simmer, and once again she delivers a deliciously seductive masterwork'
Publishers Weekly, starred review
Erdrich remains one of the world's literary giants
Boston Globe
In the hands of this master storyteller, everything is effortlessly connected. . . . Fearlessly depicting the toughest losses and darkest threats, Erdrich always finds hope
Oprah Daily (The Best Books of Fall)
[A] deft, almost winsome novel. . . . Erdrich's writing feels both effortless and wise. . . . In this tender and capacious story, love and tragedy mingle along the river and into the world
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Erdrich's achievement is pretty remarkable: a [narrative] voice with brio and lightness that wends and weaves between modes and moods. It's unpredictable and multifaceted
Guardian
A sweeping, tender-hearted epic
Harper's Bazaar
[A] finely woven tale of anguish and desire, crimes and healing. With irresistible characters, dramatic predicaments, crisp wit, gorgeously rendered settings, striking ecological facts, and a cosmic dimension, Erdrich's latest tale of the plains reverberates with arresting revelations
Booklist
An immersive domestic drama . . . that, like much of Erdrich's oeuvre, speaks to the acrimony at the heart of the American national project
New York Times
A heart-wrenching story of how human lives are susceptible to nature's impact
People
In The Mighty Red, humor and sorrow are fused together like twined tree trunks that keep each other standing.... Erdrich is so good at romantic comedy, with her special blend of Austen sense and Ojibwe sensibility. As the funny scenes flow one after another, you may not even notice the stray drops of blood scattered along the novel's margins. . . . As usual when closing a book by Louise Erdrich, I'm left wondering, how can a novel be so funny and so moving? How can life?
Ron Charles, Washington Post
The Mighty Red might just be a new American classic
Bookpage
A new novel from Louise Erdrich-winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, if you didn't know-is always something to celebrate... Start clearing off space on your bedside table now
Literary Hub

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