"The only thing that God can do, and does all of the time, is to draw good from any evil situation." The very first sentence of this novel, "Small trees had attacked my parents' house at the foundation," bears a foreboding which is felt almost physically.
Not much is more sacred than home. Not much is more frightening than having its very foundation eroded. In Louise Erdrich's novel The Round House, both are almost destroyed when twelve year old Joe's mother is raped one afternoon at the round house.
The effect of this attack on her life is cataclismic. She retreats into her bedroom and cannot come down. She cannot eat. She cannot talk. She cannot live because of the fear which has robbed her of peace.
As her son grows up, with wonderful tales of adolescence shared by his friends, he vows to discover who it was that attacked his mother. He vows to make it so that she can live without fear once again.
Filled with characters who live and breathe off of the page, dialog which alternately pierces your heart then makes you laugh, and a story line which mesmerizes, this book captures the experience of one Indian family that felt as if it had become part of my own.
I loved it.
(The Round House won the 2012 National Book Award for fiction. Thank you to Harper Collins and TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to review it.)
