From the Bookshelf of Tyler Public Library…

[close] I don’t think I have ever started a review quoting another review, but Mr. Ron Charles of the Washington Post, really irked me. So I will begin with the first sentence of his review of Erdrich’s novel, “Do we need another novel that reenacts the grim obstetrical control of “The Handmaid’s Tale”?”
Well, in my opinion, yes, Mr. Charles, we do. Women today, all over the globe, are constantly losing the right to control their own bodies. I think novels which explore reproductive rights are not only important, they are essential. Erdrich’s foray into the dystopian future finds evolution running backwards. Viable births are few. Infants and mothers are dying during childbirth and the babies that do survive appear to be of an earlier, more primitive humanoid species. Climate change is rampant and snow no longer falls in Minnesota. Erdrich’s story focuses on young expectant mother, Cedar Hawk Songmaker, the adopted daughter of two Minneapolis liberals and her reconnection with her Ojibwa birth mother, Mary and extended family. Erdrich’s novel reminded me a bible verse I read as a young woman that still remains with me forty years hence: Luke 21:23-24 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. 24They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. These verses are the reality that Cedar Hawk encounters within the pages of Erdrich’s most recent work.
Erdrich’s lyrical writing is always worth reading and Future Home of the Living God, is no exception.
Highly recommended.