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The Plague of Doves: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Louise Erdrich
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $11.75
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Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 2017
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0060515120
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060515126
ASIN: 0060515120
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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Product Description
Louise Erdrich's mesmerizing new novel, her first in almost three years, centers on a compelling mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives. Evelina Harp is a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, who is prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. Nobody understands the weight of historical injustice better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a thoughtful mixed blood who witnesses the lives of those who appear before him, and whose own love life reflects the entire history of the territory. In distinct and winning voices, Erdrich's narrators unravel the stories of different generations and families in this corner of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by history, the two communities' collective stories finally come together in a wrenching truth revealed in the novel's final pages. The Plague of Doves is one of the major achievements of Louise Erdrich's considerable oeuvre, a quintessentially American story and the most complex and original of her books.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
Plague of Doves August 4, 2008
Louise Erdrich writes complex, fascinating novels. Plague of Doves continues her tradition by focusing on the murder of a farm family a few generations earlier in North Dakota. As in the author's previous tales, plots weave in and out to form a tapestry, this time, of intermarriage between Ojibwe and white, false accusations, family truths which are only true for them, historical injustice, love, and lies.
The narrators are Evalina Harp, Marn Wolde, Judge Antone Bazil Coutts and Doctor Cordelia Lochren. Evalina tells of her Grandfather Mooshum's recollection of his first encounter with his wife... "'And there she was!' Mooshum paused in his story. His hands opened and the hundreds of wrinkles in his face folded into a mask of unsurpassable happiness." He goes on to describe how they both were young teens attempting to scare away the thousands of doves invading their fields. The couple ran and didn't look back. But they do come back and play a major role in the tale.
The narrators tell their stories; however, the tapestry remains unfinished, waiting for the next generation to weave their own pattern. We, the readers, know some truths before the inhabitants of the story. Stamps, violins, and a hanging tree all play small, yet important parts.
Erdrich is a master. As the tale unfolds, she draws us into the compelling community that on the surface is ordinary and mundane, and underneath is full of the high drama of humanity. She excels at portraying people, people most of us would never meet, yet people who will remain in our consciousness.
by Judith Helburn
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
A Satisfying Read August 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am a big fan of Louise Erdrich and have read most of her books. 'Plague of Doves' may not quite be her best, which I still think is 'Love Medecine' (which I totally recommend) but it's a very satisfying read if you like big novels with interlocking stories. 'Plague of Doves' is almost like 'The Hours' in the way that it interweaves plots from various timeframes and draws parallels between past and present events-although Erdrich's book has the advantage of also being a pretty good, suspenseful murder mystery. I found Erdrich's evocation of the historical setting of the Dakota Territory circa 1910 to be totally convincing and could easily picture this book as a TV mini-series. The best sections, though, are the ones that deal with everyday reservation life in the 1970s, which seemed to me completely convincing. There are lots of good, well-drawn characters here that you can identify with, especially Evelina, who narrates long portions of the book. In the end, I found the resolution of the murder slightly anti-climactic and really enjoyed the book most for its compelling sense of place and for all the small narratives interspersed throughout. All in all, a really good book to pack in your carry-on bag during a long vacation-which is how I read it!
 Disappointing August 2, 2008
This was the first book I read of this author, and although I persevered through it, when I reached the end, I decided it was rather a waste of time. I couldn't remember who was related to whom, and why I should care. True, some of the writing was quite lyrical--maybe that's why I finished the book--but when I got to the end, I had to go back and figure out why the murder had been committed in the first place. I really couldn't relate to any of the characters, particularly, although I was moved by the tragedy of the lynching. Otherwise, Erdich's violin and all the music around it fell into a black hole for me. I wouldn't recommend this book.
 I can still do it July 30, 2008
Read a book in one sitting and tell about it.
I did wait to have a friend loan me this book because I think
25.95 USA is too expensive. My friend did not like PLAGUE OF DOVES.
Howsomever, this author has done it again. There seems to be a whole
new cast of characters and I could not reconize any (but will read it again and see) as it made me laugh and cry as I did with her first book LOVE MEDICINE.
Her manner of drawing one in with chapter titles such as "a little nip"
wherein not only do the old men sit around nipping on good whiskey, the pinto horse takes a nip out of nosy priest's arm and is just one of the many reasons this is a page turner.
I do wonder why she writes much about Dakota when the action is mostly in Minnesota and Montana. I think I know a man who has family who had connection to "MUSTACHE MAUDE" but will be surprised at love affair with Chief Gall. But was there really a Louis Riel?
A multi-layered tour-de-force July 11, 2008
Louise Erdrich's latest novel A Plague of Doves might be the best book I've read this year. I kept turning the pages as the drama that affected an entire town unravels showing the degree to which the traumatic murder of a family and subsequent lynching of innocent parties binds the townspeople together in a fascinating web of history.
A Plague of Doves is often compared to Faulkner. Erdrich's use of multiple narrators as well as the imagery, symbolism, and characters of her novel certainly evoke Faulkner, but readers daunted by Faulkner's style need not be afraid. A Plague of Doves contains no page-length sentences or stream-of-consciousness meanderings that make it difficult to follow. This story is told from the viewpoint of four different narrators who are all connected to the town's tragic past in various ways. One of the narrators, Evelina Harp, attempts to parse the connections upon first hearing about the story of the lynching:
"The story Mooshum told us had its repercussions -- the first being that I could not look at anyone in quite the same way anymore. I became obsessed with lineage. As I came to the end of my small leopard-print diary (its key useless as my brother had broken the clasp), I wrote down as much of Mooshum's story as I could remember, and then the relatives of everyone I knew -- parents, grandparents, way on back in time. I traced the blood history of the murders through my classmates and friends until I could draw out elaborate spider webs of lines and intersecting circles. I drew in pencil. There were a few people, one of them being Corwin Peace, whose chart was so complicated that I erased parts of it until I wore right through the paper." (86)
I drew my own family tree chart in the back of my book and added to it as I read and discovered new connections. After finishing the book, I wish I had thought to make index note cards, as one reviewer did, because the web of relations is so complicated. For all its complexity the story is that much richer and more real.
Several sections of Erdrich's novel could stand alone as short stories, and indeed, parts of it have been published as short fiction, as I learned on reading Erdrich's acknowledgments at the end of the book. If parts of the novel feel somewhat digressive as a result, I think Erdrich can be forgiven, for when the reader reaches the last few pages, all the digressions are shown to be pieces of a complex puzzle -- the reader doesn't know what the picture is until the last piece is put in place.
In addition to being a fairly good murder mystery, the novel is rich in imagery, symbolism, and well-drawn characters, and by the end of the novel, I felt like a resident of Pluto, North Dakota and felt sure that I had truly known all of these people and uncovered their bloody history myself. And that, after all, is what a good book should do for us. Go right out and get this book now! It's amazing!
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