Gary Farmer introduces the listener to the Coutts family, members of the Ojibwe tribe who reside on a reservation in North Dakota in the 1980s. Perfectly cast due to his own Native American background, Farmer compassionately tells the story of 13-year-old Joe, whose mother is attacked, raped, and hospitalized—and is never quite the same again. Joe is equally devastated; desperately trying to console her, he finds himself thrust into a reality that is both traumatizing and isolating. Farmer’s voice sounds earnest and respectful as this frustrated family bears the unjust investigation into the crime. As Joe’s father, a tribal judge, does his best to escalate the inquiry, Farmer dramatizes how Joe burdens himself by taking matters into his own hands and discovers the glaring inequity encountered by an American Indian family seeking justice in a white world. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Poignant and surprisingly funny, it’s the acclaimed writer’s best book yet.

While Erdrich is known as a brilliant chronicler of the American Indian experience, her insights into our family, community, and spiritual lives transcend any category.

The story draws the reader unstoppably page by page.

Louise Erdrich’s prose is spare, precise, smooth as polished stone. Her books are rich with literary muscle.” -Austin American-Statesman

Each new Erdrich novel adds new layers of pathos and comedy, earthiness and spiritual questing, to her priceless multigenerational drama. THE ROUND HOUSE is one of her best — concentrated, suspenseful, and morally profound.

Riveting…One of Erdrich’s most suspenseful novels.... It vividly portrays both the deep tragedy and crazy comedy of life.

A stunning and devastating tale of hate crimes and vengeance…Erdrich covers a vast spectrum of history, cruel loss, and bracing realizations. A preeminent tale in an essential American saga.

Erdrich threads a gripping mystery and multilayered portrait of a community through a deeply affecting coming-of-age novel.

A sweeping, suspenseful outing from this prizewinning, generation-spanning chronicler of her Native American people, the Ojibwe of the northern plains...a sumptuous tale.

Joe may be one of Erdrich’s best-drawn characters; he’s conflicted, feisty one moment, scared and disappointed the next. THE ROUND HOUSE will inevitably draw comparisons to Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD…

Wise and suspenseful…Erdrich’s voice as well as her powers of insight and imagination fully infuse this novel…She writes so perceptively and brilliantly about the adolescent passion for justice that one is transported northward to her home territory.

One of the most pleasurable aspects of Erdrich’s writing…is that while her narratives are loose and sprawling, the language is always tight and poetically compressed…In the end there’s nothing, not the arresting plot or the shocking ending of THE ROUND HOUSE, that resonates as much as the characters.

THE ROUND HOUSE is a stunning piece of architecture. It is carefully, lovingly, disarmingly constructed. Even the digressions demand strict attention.

Haunting…a bittersweet coming-of-age tale…tender but unsentimental and buoyed by subtle wit

Erdrich has given us a multitude of narrative voices and stories. Never before has she given us a novel with a single narrative voice so smart, rich and full of surprises as she has in The Round House…and, I would argue, her best so far.

A powerful human story…By boring deeply into one person’s darkest episode, Erdrich hits the bedrock truth about a whole community.

Erdrich’s bittersweet contemplation of love and friendship, morality and generativity…result in a tender, tough coming-of-age tale.

An artfully balanced mystery, thriller and coming-of-age story…this novel will have you reading at warp speed to see what happens next.

Erdrich never shields the reader or Joe from the truth…She writes simply, without flourish.

Moving, complex, and surprisingly uplifting…likely to be dubbed the Native American TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

THE ROUND HOUSE is filled with stunning language that recalls shades of Faulkner, García Márquez and Toni Morrison. Deeply moving, this novel ranks among Erdrich’s best work, and it is impossible to forget.

A gripping mystery with a moral twist: Revenge might be the harshest punishment, but only for the victims. A-

Emotionally compelling…Joe is an incredibly endearing narrator, full of urgency and radiant candor…the story he tells transforms a sad, isolated crime into a revelation about how maturity alters our relationship with our parents, delivering us into new kinds of love and pain.

The novel showcases her [Erdrich’s] extraordinary ability to delineate the ties of love, resentment, need, duty and sympathy that bind families together…[a] powerful novel.

Poignant and surprisingly funny, it’s the acclaimed writer’s best book yet.

Erdrich has given us a multitude of narrative voices and stories. Never before has she given us a novel with a single narrative voice so smart, rich and full of surprises as she has in The Round House…and, I would argue, her best so far.

Moving, complex, and surprisingly uplifting…likely to be dubbed the Native American TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

THE ROUND HOUSE is a stunning piece of architecture. It is carefully, lovingly, disarmingly constructed. Even the digressions demand strict attention.

…a powerful human story…By boring deeply into one person’s darkest episode, Erdrich hits the bedrock truth about a whole community.

"Haunting…a bittersweet coming-of-age tale…tender but unsentimental and buoyed by subtle wit"

"Erdrich has given us a multitude of narrative voices and stories. Never before has she given us a novel with a single narrative voice so smart, rich and full of surprises as she has in The Round House…and, I would argue, her best so far."

"Riveting…One of Erdrich’s most suspenseful novels.... It vividly portrays both the deep tragedy and crazy comedy of life."