Future Home of the Living God: A Novel

Written by Louise Erdrich

Narrated by Louise Erdrich

A New York Times Notable Book

Louise Erdrich, the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of LaRose and The Round House, paints a startling portrait of a young woman fighting for her life and her unborn child against oppressive forces that manifest in the wake of a cataclysmic event

The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backwards, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans. Twenty-six-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.

Though she wants to tell the adoptive parents who raised her from infancy, Cedar first feels compelled to find her birth mother, Mary Potts, an Ojibwe living on the reservation, to understand both her and her baby’s origins. As Cedar goes back to her own biological beginnings, society around her begins to disintegrate, fueled by a swelling panic about the end of humanity.

There are rumors of martial law, of Congress confining pregnant women. Of a registry, and rewards for those who turn these wanted women in. Flickering through the chaos are signs of increasing repression: a shaken Cedar witnesses a family wrenched apart when police violently drag a mother from her husband and child in a parking lot. The streets of her neighborhood have been renamed with Bible verses. A stranger answers the phone when she calls her adoptive parents, who have vanished without a trace. It will take all Cedar has to avoid the prying eyes of potential informants and keep her baby safe.

A chilling dystopian novel both provocative and prescient, Future Home of the Living God is a startlingly original work from one of our most acclaimed writers: a moving meditation on female agency, self-determination, biology, and natural rights that speaks to the troubling changes of our time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Nov 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9780062742384

Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the award-winning author of many novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore. 

Reviews for Future Home of the Living God

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This novel is a heavy read, but particularly now, it's also incredibly necessary and timely. The despair that echoes off the pages, and the impending grief, makes for a difficult read that feels all too true and real. And despite comparisons to A Handmaid's Tale, this work takes an unflinching look at colonialism and very real history that has already tortured peoples who only wished to live their lives. Using that history, working forward from it, then means that this book is all the more powerful. Ripe with Erdrich's gorgeous writing, the story goes where it must and can only go while still surprising readers.The reality of this book is heartbreaking, and well worth reading.Absolutely recommended.

[froxgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The pace of this audio book, as read so beautifully by the author, varies enough to have made me a bit disturbed by the abrupt and inconclusive ending. Of course, the entire story is very disturbing even for a dystopian novel. The United States (nothing known about the rest of the world, no mention) seems to be evolutionarily regressing and being taken over by Christian fanatics, who seize at first all pregnant women, and then all women of childbearing age, to monitor the moms and babies, only 15% of whom are surviving in the new environment. Heroine Cedar has just met her Ojibway birth family as the novel begins, but there are many secrets still to be revealed regarding her parentage and the intentions of Phil, the father of her child. As Cedar's pregnancy progresses, initially in secret, she is stolen away to a maternity home, a/k/a a prison. Every event is very disturbing, perhaps even more so than Handmaiden's Tale, due to the narrow focus on pregnancy. Lack of privacy and use of tiny drones is terrifying, and Cedar's odds of bringing a healthy child into this worst of all possible worlds are next to nil. Too many possible spoilers to continue. But a riveting and unsettling listen for sure.

[scolgo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A bleak story interlaced with dashes of humor and interesting characters. Things sort of went off the rails for me in the final quarter of the book. I may have been in the wrong head-space at the time as this novel probably deserves a higher rating.

[elspethw-137053 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Was going to give this book 2.5/3 stars but the last line was so epic it bumped it way up to 4. It really hit me hard.

There's a lot to like about this book. I like the premise and the language and all the philosophical sciencey gibberish, but something about the main character just didn't connect with me at all. Maybe because she was two things I've never been nor wanted to be: religious and pregnant. But I've read all sorts of books about people completely different from me that I connected to. That's kinda the point of books. There was also a big part of her story that I do share with her: we're both adopted. But that was maybe the part of the story that fell the most flat for me. Her reuniting with her birth mother just felt so matter-of-fact and was described in philosophical rather than emotional terms. I had the hardest time feeling her emotions in the moments that I have the most personal experience with, which is weird.

There's also the fact that especially near the end this book kept focusing on the mystical bond between mother and fetus and between women (more accurately people with uteri but that's not acknowledged in the book) solely because of their ability to have babies. There's literally a "women's song" that all women instinctively know and only women sing. I could handle all the Catholic stuff the main character went on about because I find the reasons that people are drawn to religion fascinating and there was a critical eye towards people using religion to exploit vulnerable people in times of crisis, but I can't stand all that women's intuition crap. I'm particularly surprised because the author was critical of the way white people assume that Native people are "closer to nature". Doesn't she see how both ideas that Native people have a mystical connection to the land and that women "just know" are part of the same ideology that says that white men are superior because of their better ability to "reason" and "think rationally" while placating marginalised groups with stories about how we're superior to them in some "lesser" form of knowledge? I feel like I must have missed something and have been trying to come up with excuses like maybe the women's song bit is a sign that she's giving into the cult that's using these narratives to exploit women but I've read it over a few times and it happens very literally and she has thoughts like these earlier on, particularly in relation to just knowing things about her fetus, so I don't know.

This is especially disappointing because the author clearly knows a lot about science and is very invested in it. As a biologist who loves sci-fi I've gotten very good at suspension of disbelief. It doesn't matter to me if the cause of the apocalypse isn't biologically possible if the story and characters are compelling and it gives me a fun thought experiment of "wait, would that be biologically possible?" In this case the apocalypse is that suddenly all animals including humans start having offspring that are going "backwards" evolutionarily. Is that possible? No. But the author clearly knows this and spends some time explaining that there is no linear "forwards" or "backwards" in evolution which is miles better than most people's understanding of evolution. And she also throws in all these asides on different sciencey things about rocks and stars and fetal development with faffy philosophical musings and I'm just a sucker for that stuff even if it is ultimately kinda meaningless to the story.

But the fact that she dwells so much on actual science means that the things that don't make sense bother me more. For example, this "devolution" has only been happening for a few months when the main character sees a saber-toothed cat kill and eat a Labrador. This confused me because modern big cats take around 2 years to reach their full size and hunt on their own. It bothered me so much I had to look it up and scientists think Smilodon took 3 years to reach their full size so there's no way this cat could have been born only a few months ago and is now on its own and hunting large dogs. This really took me out of the story and I couldn't stop thinking about how since it's in Minnesota its mother must have been a cougar and would a cougar recognise a saber-toothed cub as her own and if she did would she be able to teach the cub to hunt? They have very different teeth which must mean different hunting styles as I don't think a saber-tooth could latch on to prey with its teeth the way a cougar does to subdue it. Maybe it could learn to hunt small prey but a Lab is pretty big, bigger than a cougar at 6 months old and most likely bigger than a Smilodon at 6 months, and so on. These kinds of mistakes aren't usually a big problem for me as they're fun to think about but there was so much accurate science that it stood out and took me out of the story a bit.

So overall I guess if the main character's philosophising had been balanced with a bit more emotionality and if it hadn't all turned into this big pregnant-women-having-a-psychic-connection thing at the end I would have really liked this book. And as I said that last line really hit home.

[novelcommentary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've read quite a few of Erdrich's novels and in fact now two in a row. This one takes a slight off-road direction as it delves into a dystopian future where evolution seems to be reversing. Cedar, our 26 year old pregnant narrator, is writing to her unborn child, and through her diary, we follow along the time it takes for her to deliver. However the world is in Mad Max mode; pregnant girls are rounded up so that their pregnancies can be monitored and their babies taken. "City Hall is now the headquarters of the Unborn Protection Society. The old UPS trucks haul people there." There are aspects of The Handmaid's Tale here, but enough differences to make it worth reading. Cedar's journey also includes the finding of her birth mother and the secret father who gave her up to a nice wealthy white family in Minnesota. When she finds her native mother, she also reunites with the ways of her people. Her step-father Eddy, owns a gas station and writes a never ending book of his life in an attempt to stave off suicide. Cedar's story is compelling, as are the references to historical figures and political truths. Lines from the novel“I’m afflicted,” he says, half kidding. “I suffer from a chronic melancholy, the sort diagnosed by Hippocrates as an excess of black bile.” Then he tells me that he elects to believe that he shares his condition only with writers like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and great statesmen like Winston Churchill. He doesn’t have the modern sort of depression, he says, the kind that can be treated with selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors. His is the original black dog.But no more. I have broken precedent, for your father is neither enraged nor depressed. He is not a twisted spiritual advisor. He is not a desperation junkie or a mental health survivor. He is, however, not my type.and I was fine with it until I read about Native susceptibility to European viruses. Nine of every ten of us died of measles, smallpox, what-have-you. As a descendant of that tough-gened tenth person I had some natural inherent immunity, but still.Over a hundred million of us until de Soto’s pigs got loose, Pizarro coughed, Captain John Smith sneezed. All that. Diseases killed ninety-nine percent of us.I think we have survived because we love beauty and because we find each other beautiful. I think it may be our strongest quality.You stared at me, holding on with an implacable strength, and I looked into the soul of the world.

[junipersun · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I generally seek out books by Erdrich, but this time it was a flop. Two major aspects turned me off: the focus on Catholicism, and what read like a a Right to Life promo for what your baby is doing at any week so you'll see it as a real person. Disappointing ending to a disappointing book. The main story merges several themes: an adopted woman's attempt to find her real parents; the collapse of American society & it's takeover by the religious right; genetic anomalies world wide among all species (this part poorly developed, if you expect it to follow scientific logic).

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've had this around for awhile but finally got it read now. It is not Louise Erdrich's usual novel. This one is science fiction, set in the near future and is dystopic. There is something wrong in the world but we really never know but there is an issue with pregnant women and the government is hunting them down. I think the premise is that evolution has stopped and why the government is wanting the babies is never really clear but overall I found this spooky novel written in 2017 and so reflects the current times that happened in 2019 to 2021 when government has decided to control people's choices in health care and basically is hunting down, intimidating, using public announcements coercion with money or the loss of money. Democracy is gone and dictatorship is here and no one seems to understand except the pregnant women and those that might love them. Now this may not be Erdrich's best work but it is eerily prophetic. The author uses a diary that the mother is writing to her unborn child to tell some of the story. Another part of the story is about the adoption of the protagonist by her liberal, progressive, vegan parents who live in Minneapolis. There is a lot of detail about Minneapolis and St Paul in the story. And as always, details of life in the Ojibway community where her birth mother lives.

[viviennestrauss · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have a terrible habit of choosing books without reading the blurb for fear of too much information. This was good but an emotional drain right now due to the topic of climate change + a ramped up Handmaid's Tale.

[arosoff-513117 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a tough one, because Louise Erdrich is a brilliant writer, and some parts of this novel work very well--when it comes to the relationships between people, she's on sure footing, and some of the passages are gorgeous.

I don't know how much of this is a function of the length (only 270 pages, cut down by 200 pages from the initial draft), its stop-start genesis (Erdrich began the novel in 2002 and set it aside, finishing it in 2016), or if Erdrich is just not really in her comfort zone when it comes to speculative fiction, but as a whole, the novel doesn't quite work. Our knowledge of what has happened is extremely sketchy, and the scenario is too much like The Handmaid's Tale. This is partly forced by the setup--Cedar spends most of the novel hiding in various places, isolated from information. Instead we get occasional drips of detail: chickens devolving into iguanas. The setup also limits the plot, which moves slowly even for a novel of its length. Cedar spends too much of the novel just waiting with her thoughts.

[katybee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great writing and characters in a melancholy and futuristic setting.

[lyndainoregon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A profound and perplexing novel, equal parts cautionary tale, dystopian nightmare, and fever dream, where nothing is quite as it seems and humanity’s time on earth may be drawing to a close.If you’re looking for a carefully plotted and seamlessly created end-of-times story, this isn’t it. Erdrich paints with a broad brush, or perhaps just limns with pastel chalks, and then smears them a bit for a vaguely implied meaning that shifts even as the reader examines it.Basically, the story follows Cedar Hawk Songmaker, the adopted daughter of a white couple in Minneapolis whose genetic inheritance is Native American, though details are vague and not always accurate. She has come of age in a near-future world that is changing from forces neither clearly understood nor fully explained to the reader. But in addition to rapid climate change – her home is a Minneapolis in which it no longer snows – something seems to be happening to the plant and animal life forms, including the human ones. Domestic animals no longer breed true – chickens are now something that more closely resemble iguanas, agricultural crops yield inedible or unpalatable new fruits, and something (which maddeningly remains undefined) is happening to human reproduction. This is a nearly fatal flaw, since much of the action springs from this sea change. It’s unclear whether women are having trouble conceiving (there’s a passing reference to parthogenesis and a more than passing reference to Christianity’s concept of virgin birth), or whether fetal and maternal death rates have soared, or whether the children being born are something more or less than human. It’s as if evolution has either made a U-turn, or perhaps is curving off into some new version of the Cambrian Explosion.And it’s all of great import to Cedar, because she has recently discovered herself to be pregnant, following an intense affair with a young man she’s not sure she wants to make a family with. These personal-level concerns quickly get absorbed by more pressing concerns when a vague and shadowy theocracy arises and begins rounding up pregnant woman. Cedar chooses this time to demand information on her biological parents and journeys to the Ojibwe reservation where she meets her biological mother and her mother’s new partner, a man whose concentration is largely spent on finding reasons every day to eschew suicide. While on this journey of personal exploration, she slowly realizes that the danger she has been repeatedly warned about is quite real. Most of the rest of the book is set against Cedar’s attempts to evade capture or to escape when she is apprehended, in the company of various companions.And again, that menacing but vague background threatens to dissolve into utter incoherence. Why are pregnant women being imprisoned? (Because, even though it’s being presented as “a way to keep you and your baby safe”, it’s not.) What is happening to the babies? Are mothers routinely murdered during unnecessary Cesarean sections? And are they unnecessary or is it really impossible for these maybe-not-human infants to pass through a human woman’s birth canal? There’s a subplot about a “volunteer womb corps” which quickly becomes essentially slavery as women are implanted with fertilized embryos harvested from existing stocks, or (if they have proven capable of bearing and survived) are artificially inseminated with frozen sperm stocks. Why? And if they’re so important to the future of the human race, why does the shadowy theocracy keep them imprisoned instead of elevating them to nearly goddess-like status?It just doesn’t work.And that’s a shame, because there’s a lot of good stuff here. The adventure of Cedar running and evading capture, the relationships she builds along the way, the recurrent Christian theme of Word made Flesh and how or whether that relates to the changes in the biosphere, Cedar’s pregnancy journal which she keeps even when virtually everything else is abandoned so that she can hand something to her child once it is born, the family secrets that are revealed, the pushme-pullyou of Native versus White value systems and spirituality – this is all great material, but it really struggles to rise from the primordial ooze that just refuses to form a coherent matrix.“The first thing that happens at the end of the world is that we don’t know what is happening,” one of her characters observes. The problem is, neither does the reader, and it’s a flaw this ambitious work just can’t overcome.

[lgcullens · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It seems reactions to this book are all over the place. To me, the accomplished writing and layers of meaning coalesced in exceptional storytelling and character portrayal, keeping me engrossed which occurs infrequently. I would equate the story to one of humankind's all to obvious self-inflicted diminishment, with maybe a hope of improvement in an evolutionary remake. In any case, it is a welcome departure in literary eco-fiction.

PS: This book impressed me in the realistic portrayal of the characters and their interactions, but there is another aspect of this story that annoyed me. Natural selection is a cumulative process so slow that change takes between tens of thousands to millions of years to complete, and there are overlapping natural selection processes in play that may affect outcomes.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is devastatingly beautiful in a way that only Louise Erdrich could craft it. I'm going to be crushed by this book for quite some time

June 2018: this is a book about remembrance. Cedar is a young woman at a crossroads, and this novel is her account of trying to remember the things that matter. It's a haunting and beautifully written book about faith, loss, and heritage. Even better than the first time I read it.

[deeehmm · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Five stars for sheer nerve, on top of Erdrich's signature penetrating style and unexpected humor at even the darkest times. Speaking of dark times, the main character goes through the most convincing slow descent into complete disconnection from self and human community I've ever read. Little known fact, slamming into you like a fist with this book, Louise Erdrich writes horror.

[shannonrose4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in a near-dystopian world where nature has rebelled causing evolution to hit reverse; Cedar, a mother-to- be is attempting to find her real parents to gain some knowledge to her baby’s future. While society is going haywire the government begins rounding up all pregnant women, Cedar discovers the real truth behind her family and adoption.
While reminiscent of Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale, this a fresh, moving reflection on the natural rights of all of us & speaks to the disturbing changes we see taking place in our own world.

[bonnielymer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Science fiction novel about a world where evolution is reversing itself.

[avanders_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I can't, in good conscience, rate a book anything other than 1 star when my first 3 thoughts upon finishing were "wtaf,""are you f-ing kidding me," and "f you." So yeah. Most definitely NOT for me. Other 1-star reviews will probably well-enough explain my reasons, but I’m going to go and *not* think about this book anymore.....

[perednia_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A difficult but rewarding novel that considers what happens when evolution begins to go backward, western civilization collapses, and social constructs fall apart. A young Ojibwe woman raised by a white couple finds herself pregnant. Cedar's sense of amazement and faith that her child will be fine help the reader consider how marginalized people have always adapted and are the stronger for it. Cedar is a woman of faith, not the faith of the religious conservatives who imprison pregnant women, but faith that mysteries abound and are to be honored. Instead of being a politically based novel, Future Home is a novel that commemorates the bond between mother and unborn child, and its connection to the bond between earth and living creatures.

[beth.clarke · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I normally don't enjoy dystopian novels, but I love Louise Erdich novels and thought I'd read it. Her novel takes place on a Native American reservation, and I used to teach on a reservation, so I always feel connected to her books. Erdrich is a gifted writer and the story line unfolds vividly. The protagonist, Cedar, is pregnant and her life is threatened by the new America. It's engaging and believable. I had some questions at the end, but I never like books that are all wrapped up at the end.

[cindywho-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not sure what to think of this one yet. It was in Handmaid's Tale territory; when a strange change in evolutionary results of reproduction has spooked the humans. Cedar is a pregnant Minnesotan learning about Catholicism and her native background - she just needs to survive the circumstances surrounding her birthing.

[samsattler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Louise Erdrich is best known for the depth in which she portrays contemporary Native American life in her fiction. Her work has won and been considered for major literary awards for more than a decade, including Plague of Doves (a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist) and The Round House (2012 winner of the National Book Award for Fiction). Future Home of the Living God, while it is something very different for Erdrich, is similar to her previous work in that many of the story’s main characters are members of the Ojibwa tribe of the northern Midwest. What makes this one so unusual is that it is a dystopian novel in which plants and animals in the United States, including human beings, appear to have suddenly entered some kind of reverse-evolutionary process in which new births result in more primitive versions of their parents. Cedar Hawk Songmaker, the book’s narrator, is four months pregnant when Future Home of the Living God begins, and her narration takes the form of a written diary in which she directly addresses her future child just in case she does not survive the baby’s birth. When pregnant women start to be arrested on the streets and whisked away to secret facilities, there is good reason to believe that this is precisely what will happen to Cedar and that her child may only ever know her from that diary. Then when authorities begin actively searching for pregnant women – and when society begins to crumble all around her – Cedar knows that she has to do more than stay out of sight. People around her know that she is pregnant and they know where she lives.Cedar, however, has something that most people do not have: two supportive families, an adoptive one and a tribal one - and both of those families are willing to risk their lives in order to protect Cedar and her unborn baby. As a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, everyone involved wonders how it will all end. Is it only a matter of time before the conspirators will be discovered and themselves arrested or will they all be able to blend back into the general population in just a few months? When Cedar is captured and taken to a special hospital, it appears that she and her baby are not destined for a happy ending.Future Home of the Living God, published in 2017, is a reflection of the times in which we live, a period during which women feel that their reproductive choices are being threatened in ways that may or may not be exaggerated, and that of course makes the novel even more terrifying than it otherwise would have been. For good reason, this one will remind readers of both Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and PD James’s The Children of Men. In my estimation it is every bit as powerful a novel as either of those, and it should not be missed.(I recommend the audio version of the book read by the author. She is the perfect reader for this one.)

[eembooks · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have a love/hate relationship with Loise Erdrich's books and this is in I really didn't like and if I could have given myself permission I would not have finished it. There was little that I could comprehend as plausible about this novel. February 2019

[gwendydd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book mostly coasts on Erdrich's fantastic writing. If it had been written by someone less talented, I wouldn't have stuck it out. Unfortunately, in the end, her good writing isn't enough to make this a good book.The book is a journal written to the narrator's unborn child. The narrator, Cedar, is a Native American woman who was adopted and raised by white parents. As the book begins, she receives a letter from her birth mom, so she meets her birth family and tries to make sense of the relationship between her birth parents and her adoptive family. Meanwhile, an apocalypse is unfolding: evolution has started to go backwards, and the world is in chaos. The people in power start to round up pregnant women to.... do something... with their throwback babies.And here's the main problem with the book: this apocalypse is potentially really interesting, but it's never explained to the reader's satisfaction (this reader, anyway). Evolution going backwards is weird - suddenly dinosaur-things are hatching from bird eggs - but this seems like it would be a slow change that would take generations, so why are grocery stores and gas stations suddenly empty and why has the government collapsed? Cedar is too caught up in her personal crises to ever explain the apocalypse, and the whole thing just doesn't make any sense. On top of that, there is the mysterious Mother, an apparition who appears on the screens of turned-off computers to issue dictatorial threats, and that also is never explained, doesn't make sense, and doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of the story.This apocalypse seems like it's going to provide some interesting opportunities for Cedar, a Catholic, to come to profound conclusions about the Incarnation and the nature of humanity, but that never materializes either. The vague, never-fully-explained apocalypse would be excusable if it led to some interesting conclusions, but instead, the story just peters out.

[decaturmamaof2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Heartbreaking, beautiful and fierce. Erdrich is a master of lyrical narrative!

[ajlewis2_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was one of those rare books that I didn't like but kept reading because it was well-written and captivating. It is a realistic view of where we may be taking life on earth. It shows not only the biological possibilities, but also the cultural outcome. It is heartbreaking. It is haunting. I could easily give this book 5 stars, because it is really excellent. But the stars are indications of liking and I didn't like reading this book. I so hope we can avoid this future.

[lilibrarian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The world has changed, and now evolution seems to be reversed. Strange creatures are being born, and even human babies are not quite human. To protect the species, a religious fundamentalist government demands that all pregnant and fertile women turn themselves in. Cedar, protective of her pregnancy, tries to evade capture with the help of her family.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is in the tradition of feminist dystopias started when Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid's Tale. As in that book only a small percentage of women are able to bear children and those women are sequestered so that their progeny can be used to further the causes of the Powers That Be. Is it as powerful as The Handmaid's Tale? Probably not because it is not the first of that kind. However, because the main character is an aboriginal woman it seems almost more realistic than Atwood's Tale because aboriginal people have long been pawns of whoever is in power.Cedar Hawk Songmaker was raised by white liberal parents in Minneapolis. She always knew she was adopted and her parents, Glen and Sera, tried to give her culturally appropriate experiences. She is now pregnant and she has decided to find her birth mother to see if there are any health issues that might affect the child. Sera had given her a letter written by her birth mother, an Ojibway woman from northern Minnesota called Mary Potts. Mary is married, lives on a reserve and has another daughter called Mary Potts. Cedar decides to go visit her birth mother having called first. Cedar doesn't really learn anything concrete but she does form bonds not just with her birth mother but with the whole family. The reserve is in the midst of creating a shrine to Kateri Tekakwitha, the Mohawk woman who has been canonized, because some people on the reserve have seen her. This connects with Cedar because she converted to Catholicism and has made a study of the church's saints.In the larger world trouble is brewing because of a dangerous new disease that causes genes to revert to their predecessors. Martial law is imposed and pregnant women are being rounded up. Cedar goes into hiding having stocked up on food and other goods that may be used to barter if the market system fails. The father of her child helps out finding food and resources for her. Cedar never got around to telling her adoptive parents that she was pregnant but she did tell the Potts family. She gets word from them that Glen and Sera have left Minneapolis and are safe. As her pregnancy continues Cedar's life becomes more constrained and endangered. What will she do when it comes time to give birth? No spoilers here: read the book.

[hes7 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The premise of this book is an interesting one. Cedar Hawk Songmaker is pregnant in a time when evolution works in reverse and the government makes choices for the sake of humanity. However, the execution of this premise never interested me nearly as much, plus the storytelling format of a mother writing to her unborn child didn’t feel believable to me.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My oh my! Do not read this if you or someone you love is pregnant! Once again, Louise Erdrich tells an amazing story. Reminiscent of Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale", this is a "mid-apocalyptic" rather than "post-apocalyptic" story. Babies are being born with auto immune problems, so, of course, the government has taken over. Egads! Erdrich's lush, lyrical prose makes the tragedy of the tale bearable.

[nivramkoorb · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the 4th novel that I have read by Erdrich and this one was the weakest. It deals with some of the same themes as the The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and suffers by comparison. It concerns a dystopian future where evolution is beginning to reverse. Against this backdrop Cedar, a 26 year old adopted native American, discovers she is 4 months pregnant. In the current atmosphere this is not a good thing as the totalitarian government wants to control birth mothers because there is a problem with all births. The story is written as a journal from Cedar to her unborn child as she goes through betrayal, escape, capture etc as the story move towards the birth of her child. Although this is an ambitious plot, there are way too many holes that need to be filled. You could focus in on Cedar's story and dismiss that Erdrich doesn't give the reader more explanation about the current biological crisis. Erdrich said that this was originally a longer story and has been edited down to 266 pages. Another 50 pages with more plot explanation would have helped the story. The writing was excellent and Erdrich weaved in Native American issues into the book. If you are an Erdrich reader you might enjoy this. If not, then try "The Round House" as your introduction to Erdrich.