At a crossroads in his life, Lipsha Morrissey is summoned by his grandfather on the reservation. There he comes to terms with his heritage, his fut...
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Mar 16, 2011
Elizabeth (Alaska)
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Lipsha Morrissey is probably the least likely of all central characters. He is a ne'er-do-well extraordinaire. He sweeps the floors at the bingo palace and is sometime night watchman. But he loves Shawnee Ray Toose and we cannot help but feel for him. Not sorry for him, but want him to find a way to make a life with her. But she's not having anything to do with him - he is a Morrissey for one thing.
The Bingo Palace is so much more than this love story, it's impossible to put into wor More...
The Bingo Palace is so much more than this love story, it's impossible to put into wor More...
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Aug 09, 2008
Gina
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OH LOUISEY, YOU DAWG! IT'S SO HARD TO EVEN BEGIN TO REVIEW THIS BOOK, BUT WE POOR SUBLUNARY CREATURES WANT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOIN ON UP THERE IN THE EXALTED SPHERES.
Okay no more shouting Alleluias in bold face: let's get down to work: I follow the dictums given to my students eons ago to decipher the novel's meaning. We deconstruct according to five topics:
SETTING: We are somewhere in and around The Dakotas. Fargo is mentioned but the setting becomes ver More...
Okay no more shouting Alleluias in bold face: let's get down to work: I follow the dictums given to my students eons ago to decipher the novel's meaning. We deconstruct according to five topics:
SETTING: We are somewhere in and around The Dakotas. Fargo is mentioned but the setting becomes ver More...
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Jan 25, 2012
Nick
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I reread The Bingo Palace with hopes of inching it into four star territory. But upon second reading, I still can’t in good conscience give the novel anything but three. The first half of the book is great. It positions at the center of the narrative a good old-fashioned love story that begins at a pow-wow which the author describes wonderfully, where the two protagonists meet and Lipsha develops his all-consuming passion for Shawnee Ray. Erdrich keeps this love story central while she whirls th
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Dec 03, 2008
bookczuk
rated it: 
You know, I think I'm just going to give up on Louise Erdrich. I liked The Master Butcher's Singing Club, and was okay with The Beet Queen and with parts of The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. But with each of her books, it's a chore for me to read. It takes weeks, if longer occasionally. I pick them up and put them down. Sometimes, I'm rewarded with a line like "In her eyes I see the force of her love. It is bulky and hard to carry, like a package that keeps untying."
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Dec 08, 2010
Kate
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Oct 31, 2010
Erin
rated it:
Interesting (though not all that surprising!)to find a fellow classmate here.
I just finished reading the novel. While I have enjoyed (for the most part) the assigned reading for the course, I've never read any work by American Indian authors before. Therefore, I find myself needing to change the way I look at and experience these novels. Erdrich's book has been a welcome bit of brain-relaxation - she still makes me think, but writes at a more "all humanity-encompassing" level. So More...
I just finished reading the novel. While I have enjoyed (for the most part) the assigned reading for the course, I've never read any work by American Indian authors before. Therefore, I find myself needing to change the way I look at and experience these novels. Erdrich's book has been a welcome bit of brain-relaxation - she still makes me think, but writes at a more "all humanity-encompassing" level. So More...
Feb 10, 2010
Bucket
rated it:
I have a favorable impression now that I've finished, but in the beginning I really wondered if I would like this. There are so many characters within the first ten or so pages and I absolutely could not keep them straight - especially since they are all inter-related in various ways. As the book went on, I figured out which ones mattered here and ignored the rest, but before I got to that point I did a lot of looking back. I wonder if this problem would have been less apparent if I had read t
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Jun 30, 2010
Michael
rated it:
This is the story of the growth and maturation of Lipshaw Morrisey.
He is the illegitimate son of June Kashpaw and Gary Nanapush. He's summoned back to the reservation by his grandmother, Lulu Lamaratine. Her method of summons is a wanted poster with his father's photo on it.
This effective wake up makes Lipshaw examine his existence. He considers his life with his dead end job, his world of drugs and bleak future. Then he packs his car and heads back to the res.
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He is the illegitimate son of June Kashpaw and Gary Nanapush. He's summoned back to the reservation by his grandmother, Lulu Lamaratine. Her method of summons is a wanted poster with his father's photo on it.
This effective wake up makes Lipshaw examine his existence. He considers his life with his dead end job, his world of drugs and bleak future. Then he packs his car and heads back to the res.
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Apr 15, 2009
Catherine
rated it: 
I confess to not really understanding a lot of what went on in this book. Whatever theme or narrative arc Erdrich was following was lost on me, especially when I got to the end and found so many threads of the story still hanging. Ending the book as she did can't have been accidental - but I missed the clues that would have made it make sense to me. I need to think on it some more, see if I can't remember things I've missed.
It was, as ever, wonderful to spend time with the people More...
It was, as ever, wonderful to spend time with the people More...
Aug 11, 2009
Monique
rated it:
It's so funny, I just looked over my other reviews of Louise Erdrich books and every review starts out with how beautifully written the novels are. And that's the first time I had ever gone back to compare my reviews of her work. Anyway, The Bingo Palace is no exception in terms of Erdrich's writing ability; this novel is as beautifully written as the others...but this novel didn't grab at my gut the way the other books did. It's a solid effort, but I think the plot was just not as compelling to
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Jan 19, 2009
Nicole
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i inadvertently checked out two books from the library with the word palace in the title, so I guess that summarizes my current escapist tendencies. I've heard this is one in a sequence of novels by Erdrich, but the story stands fine by itself. I personally enjoyed the open ending -- not knowing whether the characters fall in love and live happily ever after, left wondering whether the tribe will build a large casino on the res or not. Erdrich is a really gifted writer and has a way of making ch
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Sep 21, 2010
Paula
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in this fourth book of louise erdrick's we are once again taken back to the reservation. this time to watch modern day decendants of the clans, whose lives are so interwoven by marriages that everyone seems to be related. as they try to integrate the present and future, and still somehow honor their past traditions, all generations make decisions that have long term impact. filled with heartache, humor, love and the wisdom of the ages, it's a beautiful story that will stay with you long after
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Nov 04, 2010
Matt
rated it:
Required reading for Am. Ind. Lit., Prof. Laura Furlan, UMASS-Amherst.
Erdrich is good. I'd only read "Love Medicine" before this, and didn't remember enjoying it as much as this, but I was probably just being a wiener when I read "Love Medicine".
I was surprised with all the comparisons Erdrich gets to Faulkner, but I see it, and agree with it in the sense of creating a fictional place and characters and using them across a decade plus of novels.
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Erdrich is good. I'd only read "Love Medicine" before this, and didn't remember enjoying it as much as this, but I was probably just being a wiener when I read "Love Medicine".
I was surprised with all the comparisons Erdrich gets to Faulkner, but I see it, and agree with it in the sense of creating a fictional place and characters and using them across a decade plus of novels.
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May 24, 2010
Rena
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This will go down as one of my favorite books by Louise Erdrich, but it's part of a trilogy, and its so long since I read the first two, that now I want to go back and read them, and put it into context.
Sometimes Erdrich's cultural perspective to keep the story cyclical loses me at the end of her books, but this one made perfect sense. And the strength and determination of absolute, all-encompassing love is beautifully demonstrated in Lipshaw's mother and father, as well as in his More...
Sometimes Erdrich's cultural perspective to keep the story cyclical loses me at the end of her books, but this one made perfect sense. And the strength and determination of absolute, all-encompassing love is beautifully demonstrated in Lipshaw's mother and father, as well as in his More...
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Dec 27, 2009
Lindsay
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The masochist in me has developed a strange yearning for Erdrich when the blistering winter chill starts to scrape St. Louis. Not that this place gets nearly as cold and for not nearly as long as her Dakota climes, but there's such a mysteriously gratifying level of sympathy, longing, and ironic warmth I get out of her world. I think this started when I read most of Tracks one December day three years ago, smothered in blankets next to a drafty window in a former apartment, when my heat had go
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Jan 11, 2012
Rita
rated it:
I love the way she writes. The only other book of hers I've read so far is Love Medicine, so now I've got some things to add to my to-read list! Starting with whatever comes after this one, because she left me hanging a bit at the end. I don't remember when I read Love Medicine; it's been years, and before I started this one, I didn't remember the plot, just a couple of scenes and that it was sad and really good. But now, coming back to some of the same characters, I remember more of the firs
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Jul 24, 2011
What a great book! The story is compelling, I love the ongoing worries and escapades of her cast of characters in this deeply and richly textured tale.
Dec 08, 2009
Rob
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Erdrich tackles some weighty Native American issues in this book--politically, spiritually, and emotionally. It was an ambitious attempt to backlight contemporary Native Ameican life at the time this novel was written. However, for me, it is a good but not great book. If you're a fan of Erdrich, yes, you'll find aspects to like about it. But it won't mesmerize you like her great works of fiction.
Jul 13, 2010
Sandra
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Too real, too close: the sense of ennui and all the relatives, and on the reservation, they are all relatives, and they need attending to. The story is probably like a poem that needs to be reread to be fully appreciated. Maybe I have known too many bingo players, and how all in their immediate life goes to the wayside to get to the evening game. The title is right on.
Mar 30, 2010
Erdrich melds poetry and prose in a seamless way. She writes of "regular" people using evocative and visual language. I re-read some paragraphs several times because they were perfection. This is one of several novels about a group of American Indian families in 20th century Dakotas and Minnesota. I think it is the best. The plot is engaging.
Dec 28, 2008
Jinger
rated it:
I remember reading Love Medicine in high school and being amazed. Something's missing in this follow-up, possibly because The Bingo Palace tends to follow mostly one character's story, rather than the sprawling epic that I expected. I'm definitely going to pick up a copy of Love Medicine again soon, though.
Apr 01, 2009
Story of ill-fated life and love of Lipsha Morrissey, with tantalizing fragments of the stories of all the other characters in the tribe, developed more in her other books. Interesting, but not as good as Miracle at Little Horse or Master Butcher’s Singing group….
Aug 01, 2011
Wow....wow...WOW! What a beautifully written book. I am still reeling from the ingenious ending - still clueing into the some of the subtle connections she weaves among characters Erdrich is such a gifted writer. If you haven't read anything by her yet, you must.
Jun 05, 2009
Erdrich has a great "feel" and voice as you move through her novels. I love how you can feel intimacy and yet mystery with her characters. Will I be able to keep reading with my class coming up? Who knows? Chances are, this will be an all summer read.
Sep 16, 2009
lisa
rated it:
I am not loving it as much as I loved Love Medicine, and I'm not sure if that's because it's not as compelling, or because I read Love Medicine ten years ago and would have loved that less if I read it now. But I do think she's pretty great.
Mar 27, 2009
Barb
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We did this for our book discussion but it was a difficult read. The writing style was obscure and the group members had difficulty thinking of topics to discuss with the book.
Dec 02, 2008
Hillary
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Louise Erdrich. Who knew I liked her? But I do. I've only read this and The Beet Queen, and I liked The Beet Queen better. But this was pretty darn good.
Nov 18, 2009
Steven
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The main narrator of this novel, Lipsha, is an interesting character, but overall the writing lacks the music and mystique of Tracks and Love Medicine.
Jul 13, 2010
Irwin
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I love louise erdrich. In many passages, each word is a gem, and this is one of her lesser books. My favorite is still "Tales of Burning Love."
Jan 22, 2011
Holly
rated it:
I'd like to give it 3.5 stars, but... My least favorite of all the Louise Erdrich books, but, probably the most realistic.
