The Sentence

Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022

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The Sentence

By: Louise Erdrich

Narrated by: Kevin Crouch

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$8.99/month after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offer ends on 29 July 2026 at 11:59 AEST.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022
PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE NIGHT WATCHMAN

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In this stunning and timely novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage and of a woman's relentless errors.

Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading 'with murderous attention,' must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

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'Erdrich is one of the greatest living American writers' Guardian

'Strange, enchanting and funny: a work about motherhood, doom, regret and the magic - dark, benevolent and every shade in between - of words on paper' New York Times

'The poet laureate of the contemporary Native American experience' Mail on Sunday©2021 Louise Erdrich

Louise ErdrichKevin CrouchLittle, Brown Book Group

Fantasy

Fiction

Ghosts

Horror

World Literature

Haunted

Scary

Native American

Paranormal

Funny

Heartfelt

Mystery

Fantasy Fiction Ghosts Horror World Literature Haunted Scary Native American Paranormal Funny Heartfelt Mystery

Critic Reviews

Louise Erdrich is the rarest kind of writer, as compassionate as she is sharp-sighted (Anne Tyler)

A novel that reckons with ghosts - of both specific people but also the shadows resulting from America's violent, dark habits

Scintillating . . . More than a gripping ghost story, The Sentence offers profound insights into the effects of the global pandemic and the collateral damage of systemic racism. It adds up to one of Erdrich's most . . . illuminating works to date

Erdrich is one of the greatest living American writers

The poet laureate of the contemporary Native American experience

No one can break your heart and fill it with light all in the same book - sometimes in the same paragraph - quite like Louise Erdrich

'Strange, enchanting and funny: a work about motherhood, doom, regret and the magic - dark, benevolent and every shade in between - of words on paper'

'The story is, perhaps above all, about the peace available to us in books like this'

'[Tookie's] journey, captured in Erdrich's expert prose, is a cathartic and comforting story that book lovers will gobble up'

'Erdrich writes with conviction'

[A[ powerful, endearing novel . . . [The Sentence] resolves in small moments of personal redemption and familial love, allowing for hope amid tragedy (Erica Wagner)

'Promises to be both funny and profound'

'As the owner of a store herself, Erdrich knows whereof she writes, and her off-beat ghost story is in part a love letter to books and the shops that sell them. It also captures with compelling fidelity a year of personal and national dread and anguish - yet still pulls off a happy ending'

'Erdrich's exploration of racial appropriation, and her treatment of such forgery as the stuff of horror, is fascinating. Tookie feels the ghost of Flora breathing in her ear - "let me in" - and at one point, trying to claw her way inside Tookie's body'

'Literature lovers will savour the conversations between booksellers and their customers...Erdrich depicts white privilege while at the same time confirming identity politics is never straightforward'

'A delight, a thought-provoking work of art'

The real and the supernatural lock eyes in the deeply layered, immersive novel

Masterfully written... tackle[s] [a] serious subject matter but also deliver[s] witty writing that makes you laugh out loud

Words still offer solace in this richly layered novel by Erdrich

[A] powerful, endearing novel (Erica Wagner)

'Few novels capture their times as well as this'

Most relevant

This is a superb book, superbly read. This gentle, intelligent voice takes you on a journey of love, loss, fallibility, caring, and honesty; of facing hard truths in a way that is true to the protagonist.
I have never read a book by this author before, but will now seek out everything she has written.
She has introduced me to the immediacy of the modern North American First Nations people through the eyes of a strong and warm woman who is working to find a way through being part of two cultures, fighting to plant her feet solidly on the earth, and to find a place for compassion and love in this time of chaos, extreme politics, and uncertainty.
A strong story, gently told.