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LaRose

Louise Erdrich

Start date: June 1, 2023

Finish date: June 21, 2023

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Author's Pick

Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country
By Michaela · 1 post · 15 views

last updated Oct 04, 2023 11:14AM

Future Home of the Living God
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last updated Aug 09, 2023 11:33AM

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What Members Thought

May 21, 2016 Barbara rated it really liked it

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, ...more

40 likes · Like · see review

Apr 28, 2017 Stacey rated it really liked it

3.5 Louise Erdrich is a great storyteller and her writing is masterful. This is about LaRose whose life was changed forever after a fatal accident involving his father and a close family friend. It's part of Ojibwe beliefs that the honorable thing to do is to give LaRose to this grieving family to raise as their own. We are taken on a journey as LaRose adapts to his new life and family. This is a story about justice, forgiveness, and family.

I have come to expect certain things when I'm reading E ...more

29 likes · Like · see review

Jul 18, 2016 Suzy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: listened-to, mia-book-tours, audio-faves, diane-buddyread, family-dynamics, back-and-forth-in-time, magical-realism, found-family, native-american

A powerful story about Ojibwe culture, both modern and historical, told through the lens of two neighboring families living through the aftermath of tragedy. The accidental killing of the child of one of these families by the husband in the other triggers the best and worst of human nature - grief, compassion, blame, anger, revenge, caring, faith, betrayal, addiction/recovery, hope for the future. The people who populate this book wrestle with the darkness, hoping to create a space for the light ...more

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Sep 17, 2016 Lisa rated it liked it

On the third try, I finally finished. LaRose was an interesting but difficult book to read. It opens as Landreaux Irons accidentally kills his friend's son, Dusty Ravich. Landreaux is devastated and filled with remorse.

In keeping with Native American Ojibwe tradition, Landreaux and his wife Emmaline give their son LaRose to the Raviches. "Our son will be your son now." It is a form of restorative justice.

As you can imagine, this action increases the turmoil for all the people in these two famil ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Jun 14, 2016 Jeanne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-women, read-2016, first-nation

LaRose is the third in a series of books by Louise Erdrich, each set on the Ojibwa reservation, near the town of Pluto. While the three books share some characters, they are less a trilogy than a well-loved community that the author can't help returning to. I hope she returns again. Still, violence from one generation spills onto later ones and into later books.

LaRose is a story of grief and grieving. Five-year-old Dusty is accidentally killed by his father's best friend (his mother's half-siste LaRose is the third in a series of books by Louise Erdrich, each set on the Ojibwa reservation, near the town of Pluto. While the three books share some characters, they are less a trilogy than a well-loved community that the author can't help returning to. I hope she returns again. Still, violence from one generation spills onto later ones and into later books.

LaRose is a story of grief and grieving. Five-year-old Dusty is accidentally killed by his father's best friend (his mother's half-sister's husband). As a way of creating justice and healing between the families, Dusty's best friend, LaRose, is sent to live with Dusty's family: "Sometimes energy of this nature, chaos, ill luck, goes out in the world and begets and begets. Bad luck rarely stops with one occurrence. All Indians know that. To stop it quickly takes great effort, which is why LaRose was sent" (Loc. 1871-1872).

Grief takes different forms. Dusty's mother withdraws from life and obsessively cleans. His sister becomes angry and cruel. His father withdraws from his best friend. Landreaux, the accidental killer, attempts to go on – and often seems to be doing well – but he and his wife need to fight the stories they tell: "The story would be around him for the rest of his life. He would live in the story. He couldn’t change it. Even LaRose won’t change it, she said. // But Landreaux knew that wasn’t exactly true. LaRose had already changed the story" (Loc. 591-593). Grief is generally stopped and healed in relationship, as one person reaches out to others.

This story, though, is a story within a story. The families' grief is seen within a well-developed historical and cultural context where we meet each of the four LaRoses, stretching back across five generations. Both of the youngest LaRose's families have ethnically-diverse backgrounds: his birthfamily is mostly Ojibwan, while his foster family is mostly Russian-German by heritage. These backgrounds and their backstories influence their sense of belongingness, their strategies for coping with grief, and the lives they style for themselves.

The current LaRose is the only male of the five LaRoses. Each is schooled and wise in Ojibwan lore and customs, but also well-schooled in White ways. Although the characters revert to their Ojibwan heritage, their White schooling does not detract from their personhood, but can make them more complex, competent, and well-rounded when they return home. Still, they often experience a sense of loss when living with whites. Landreaux, for example, is sent to boarding school where the administrator "meant well and her intentions were to help him be a good boy, but a white boy" (Loc. 3123-3124). Most, though, like the youngest LaRose, find a rich and satisfying balance:

He had learned from his birth family how to snare rabbits, make stew, paint fingernails, glue wallpaper, conduct ceremonies, start outside fires in a driving rain, sew with a sewing machine, cut quilt squares, play Halo, gather, dry, and boil various medicine teas. He had learned from the old people how to move between worlds seen and unseen. Peter taught him how to use an ax, a chain saw, safely handle a .22, drive a riding lawn mower, drive a tractor, even a car. Nola taught him how to paint walls, keep animals, how to plant and grow things, how to fry meat, how to bake. Maggie taught him how to hide fear, fake pain, how to punch with a knuckle jutting. How to go for the eyes. How to hook your fingers in a person’s nose from behind and threaten to rip the nose off your face. He hadn’t done these things yet, and neither had Maggie, but she was always looking for a chance. (Loc. 3459-3465)

This is a rich book, one that will lead to interesting discussions. I have referred to some of the book's story lines, but there are others about war and trauma, love and relationship, addiction, and lost heritages. This is a book that can easily be read and reread, unearthing more each time.
...more

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Oct 14, 2017 Randy A. rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Two stars seems so harsh but I'm just being honest about my experience reading LaRose. The story, in synopsis, was special, rich and beautiful -- a tragedy that in some ways tears families apart and in other ways joins them together. But in its execution, I found 75% of the book a slog and 25% of it great. I was particularly interested in reading about Native American communities, and I did learn things about Ojibwe tradition as well as Indian boarding schools. I also enjoyed getting to know som ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 06, 2016 Em rated it liked it

I loved the story this could have been. All the way through I just kept feeling like there was more inside this story that needed to be brought forward-but it just didn't happen. The author's prose was captivating and she tells a good story....but I just wanted more than she gave in this book. ...more

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