The Sentence

Written by Louise Erdrich

Narrated by Louise Erdrich

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. 

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9780063144859

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 The Sentence

[quirkylibrarian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Just magical. A Minnesotan, I felt transported in place and time to Uptown where George Floyd was murdered. Felt the tear gas that my young nurse friends helped the protesters recover from. A librarian, I loved the woven relationships between the characters, the cultural references. As a woman always looking for a sense of belonging I felt deeply for Flora’s deep wanting. Fabulous.

[selfcallednowhere · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved loved LOVED this book. The main character has a strong and compelling voice, most of the secondary characters were also interesting enough to be able to carry their own books, and it dealt with all that's been stirred up over the past few years (covid, the American racial reckoning) in a way that was often *almost* still too raw to read but didn't quite cross the line to the point that I couldn't keep reading--instead, I felt invested in what happened to these characters more deeply than I have in a book I've read in awhile. As both a writer and devoted bookworm the bookstore setting and deep love of and engagement with books and language itself woven throughout were much appreciated, and especially appreciated was the appendix of the "totally biased" list of the main character's favorite books at the end, which I will forever be disappointed now that every single book I read does not include.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first few chapters of this book had me intrigued, especially Tookie's character and her bookstore. The plot seemed to meander as it went along and turned into a commentary on a number of current affairs. Although I recognize the significance of these events and the issues they raise, the story's plot seemed to veer off course. I could not help but wonder why it was all happening, even though it might have been my fault as a reader.

The story had a lot of strong themes of love and death, which made it quite an emotional ride for me. Tookie and her husband Pollux have a pure love that makes me smile warmly at times, but then Tookie has another unsettling encounter with the ghost that haunts her, and that chills me. I was able to enjoy the story despite its apparent lack of direction because of the author's superb writing style.

A big plus was the "Totally Biased List of Tookie's Favorite Books" at the end of the novel!

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Book on CD read by the author


From the book jacket 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.

My reactions
Gosh, but I love Erdrich’s writing! Here she uses more magical realism than in some of her other works and I am definitely a fan of this writing style.

Tookie is a marvelous character. She’s made mistakes, and she has paid for them. Now she has a number of friends and coworkers who support her (and whom she supports). I loved all her book recommendations (and special thanks to Erdrich for including a list at the back of the book).

Can Tookie figure out why Flora’s ghost is focused on her? Can she find a way to set Flora’s spirit to rest?

This specific personal drama takes place during a time of unrest and uncertainty in the world and particularly in Minneapolis. The COVID 19 pandemic plays a significant role, as does the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

This may be my favorite of Erdich’s books.

The audio is narrated by the author. Erdrich does a fine job of telling this story, with good pacing and a clear sense of where the story is going and how she wants the story to unfold.

[bruyere_c · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In the back is the Totally Biased List of Tookie’s Favorite Books: ghost-managing books, short perfect novels, Indigenous lives, sublime books, pandemic reading, and more.

[mari5b-373684 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I love most of Louise Erdrich's books, but the characters in this one were rather hard for me to empathize with nor was it written in her usual lyrical style.

[rlsalvati · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was lovely.

[bibleblaster · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed this book-centric novel and the narrative voice. Made me long for my bookstore-prowling, book-slinging days, as well as provide an opportunity for reflection on some painful realities of our place & time.

[michaelasreads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reader's annotation: A haunted bookstore set in 2020 Minneapolis, because why not

Review: Something about The Sentence is so much more alive than Erdrich's other works, which is saying something when she won the Pulitzer for The Night Watch. While the first part tracing Tookie's backstory is slow, the novel picks up when we enter the bookstore and the tumultuous time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Literary inclined readers will be captivated by the story and the composition, as the author herself makes an appearance in the book, and the climactic twist is a testament to the power that comes from reading words on a page. Undoubtable, The Sentence is a modern classic, the most essential pandemic novel yet to be written.

Rating scale:
5 stars: a staple, appeal to readers of the genre and not, a guaranteed notable reading experience, lots of high quality elements
4 stars: a solid read that can be a great conversation starter, well-crafted and well-received by readers and critics
3 stars: recommendation success may vary, a mixed bag as far as quality and appeal factors
2 stars: generally not recommended, unmet potential
1 star: I wish I didn't have eyeballs so that I had not the misfortune of reading this book

Available in hardcover, paperback, large print, audio CD, ebook, and e-audio formats

[stefan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

O carte minunata și o voce perfectă pentru a o asculta.

[caanderson-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a unique book. The characters are great The story take you on this long road solving the mystery of a customer that loves books.

[booklove2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is probably the book Erdrich needed to write during Covid times, and probably the book a lot of us needed to read during Covid times. Tookie is quite the character. Some reveals in the book seemed shoehorned in, which was odd. But overall, I liked this book. It would probably be a favorite Covid book, if I had to choose (but I'm also not going to make it a mission to read the Covid books.) This was also important to show Minneapolis during the protests of 2020. Within the novel is so much literature that is just my jam. Erdrich knows her stuff. I LOVE the book lists at the end.
*Book #165/358 I have read of the shortlisted Morning News Tournament of Books

[msf59 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Flora was a frequent visitor to a small, independent bookstore in Minneapolis. After she died on All Soul’s Day, she refused to leave the bookstore and her ghost haunted the bookshelf aisles. The employees were understandably spooked by her presence and tried to find a way to put her soul to rest. This is not only an entertaining ghost story but it also is a deep look at Native American issues, the rise of Covid and the George Floyd tragedy. I admire Erdrich’s ambition but the novel feels a bit cluttered at times. I still recommend the book, especially for fans of Erdrich.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was reluctant to read this novel when it first came out---just was not ready for anything dealing with the pandemic. I pre-ordered a signed copy of it directly from Birchbark Books, though, 'cause, well, 'cause. So now I have read it. I liked some things about it very much. The characters of Tookie, Pollux, and Hetta---marvelous. And a good set of secondary characters. The setting---Erdrich's own bookstore, a place I would love to visit. However, overall the story didn't work very well for me. Like some other readers, I felt the actual events of 2019-2021 felt patched in, and not complementary to Tookie's quest to understand why her former customer's ghost was hanging around after apparently being shocked to death by one sentence of an old manuscript. THAT story had great potential, but it was not realized. When the big reveal finally came, I was so bewildered I had to go back and read earlier sections, sometimes more than once, to get what we were meant to understand about Flora's past, and how it mattered to Tookie. I very much want to read THAT story, as it should have been written, without the extraneous social commentary. The two things did not fit together well. Erdrich should have done better. And her editor should have told her to. I felt I MUST have missed something, and that something was never provided. A reluctant 3 stars...the writing was good, as always. And maybe 10 years from now, the parts I wished were not there would strike me differently, but having lived through it all once, I don't think I'll read about it twice.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For the love of a woman, Tookie agrees to steal a body, only to find she's been set up, as there are drugs under the man's armpits. She takes the fall and goes to jail for some years, then gets out ten years later and starts working at Birchbark Books. When she becomes haunted by the ghost of one of their regulars and then the COVID-19 pandemic hits, George Floyd is murdered, and Tookie finds herself grappling with past and present in her personal life.

This is a bit of a departure from the other books I've read by Louise Erdrich. It's set in Minneapolis instead of the reservation, it's current rather than historical (as it was published in 2021, and the events happen in 2019-20, it's about as contemporary as you can get). Birchbark Books is the name of the independent bookstore Louise Erdrich owns, and the author herself makes a fictional appearance in the book. The book started out very funny and almost easygoing to me, but once the pandemic hits at about the halfway point, the tone gets darker and more intense. It doesn't shy away from the feelings of isolation and confusion we all experienced early in the pandemic, when we all weren't sure how the virus spread and were just figuring things out day to day. This is probably one of the best fictional representations, written in the moment, that I've seen of what it was like to live through 2020. Tookie's own journey to deal with the ghost in the bookstore and her own past make the stakes personal, and the ending is extremely satisfying. Highly recommended.

[lylee-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well drawn characters led by protagonist, share relatable but special experiences working in a book store in Minneapolis during the summer of 2020.

[charon07 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of Tookie, an ex con who works at a bookstore in Minneapolis owned by an author named Louise. Tookie is now married to the tribal cop who arrested her, she has a fraught relationship with her step daughter and with the ghost of a former bookstore customer who died while reading a book that is now in Tookie’s possession that she thinks may be cursed. It takes place in 2020: COVID-19 has just struck, Native Americans protest the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock reservation, then George Floyd is murdered by the police and the ensuing protests and riots tear Minneapolis apart.

Through the tender and moving stories of Tookie and her family, friends, and co-workers throughout this difficult year, Erdrich also looks at social issues like Indigenous rights, reparations, poverty, racism, and social and economic justice. The novel also offers a great survey of literature, as Tookie considers her favorite books and recommends books to the sometimes difficult-to-please bookstore customers. I listened to the audiobook, wonderfully read by the author herself, and it was accompanied by a PDF of the “Totally Biased List of Tookie’s Favorite Books,” grouped in the categories “Ghost-Managing Book List,” “Short Perfect Novels,” “Sailboat Table” (a display table in the bookstore), “Books for Banned Love,” “Indigenous Lives,” “Indigenous Poetry,” “Indigenous History and Nonfiction,” “Sublime Books,” “Tookie’s Pandemic Reading,” and “Incarceration.” I might make it a goal to read at least the “Short Perfect Novels.”

[kalliegrace · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I knew nothing about this when I started, and was pleasantly surprised at where this went. The first chapter or two made me think this was a prison novel related to the sentence of 60 years given our main character....but then we left that behind and went on an emotional rollercoaster of a year in a Minneapolis bookshop haunted by a white woman's ghost looking for absolution by our main character. The pandemic hits, and we get the perspective of being indigenous and at risk during this deadly time in history. George Floyd is murdered and the protests and riots begin. If you are going to read fiction about that year of hell, this is a good one to read. I was very wrapped up in my own grief and crisis of pediatric cancer that the trauma of the pandemic never fully had its moment. It was good to read through this beautifully written account by fictional characters.

[fmclellan-29530 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful book. Imaginative, deeply felt, a perfect evocation of our times.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This beautifully written novel tells the story of Tookie and Pollux. We learn of their past where Pollux arrested her, resulting in her imprisonment. We experience their lives in the Minneapolis area during COVID 19 and the riots resulting from the George Floyd incident. We also learn that Flora's ghost haunts the bookstore. Elements of the Ojibwe culture are present and important to the book's action. The author successfully uses the Ojibwe culture to foreshadow and to add interest. We read this for our faculty book club, and I think our consensus is that this is our favorite among the books we've read over the years.

[muffinbutt1027 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed the first half, but the second half felt very disjointed and even though it eventually came back around, it didn't really feel like all of the pieces tied together. The inclusion of Covid and George Floyd, while relevant in time and place - did not seem relevant to the main characters arc and felt really out of place in the story.

[jepeters333 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[reading_fox · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I'm not sure why I bought this book, it was on my wishlist but I can no longer remember what prompted me to add it. I wish I hadn't. One of the few professionally published books that I very nearly didn't finish at all, and actively disliked the last quarter.

Initially it had some promise. The heroine is one Tookie a Native American newly released from prison, harshly sentenced for a crime she was thoroughly guilty of, and then very suddenly married to the policeman who arrested her. There's a little bit of a redemption arc, as Tookie pull sher life together and starts working in a bookstore interacting well with staff and customers. And then from halfway through it just gets weirder and weirder. Tookie believes she's being haunted by a ghost of one of her customers who'd been culturally appropriating Native ancestry - Tookie and the author of course being somewhat gatekeeping on who is allowed to be a 'real' Native American. From this low it then wallows in a turgid recounting of life with covid and Grant Lloyd.

Yes these were traumatic times, and if you feel the need to write about them to relieve your suffering of those times, then that's fine. Please don't stuff such writing into the back of a novel into which it has no other connection. It was bad enough already.

[proustitute_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

From the midway point, this is (currently) the American novel of COVID, of the year 2020: of Trump fucking up the governmental response to the pandemic; of Derek Chauvin's knee robbing George Floyd of his life; of the Black Lives Matter protests we all felt compelled to take part in given the urgency we all felt, yet also feeling the underlying, omnipresent fear of COVID lurking—the face masks, the social distancing, the paranoia even with loved ones.

Erdrich has written a great book on the American COVID experience and how it collided with George Floyd's murder, exacerbating pre-existing and often ignored or suppressed racial tensions in the country, but this is only the second part of this novel. The first part is something different: it seems like she began with another plot in mind, and, halfway through, as COVID began taking hold of the world, the novel incorporated COVID into what was otherwise a book about ghosts, buried pasts, the incarceration of Native American women, and other intriguing factors. The problem with this novel, I feel, is that the thread of the first half doesn't align with COVID, BLM, and what Erdrich is doing in the latter half: uniting the Black American experience with the Native American experience, the experience of White rule, of White hands murdering Black and Brown people in this country.

This is not to say that The Sentence doesn't carry power and immense weight: like I said, I think it's our best pandemic book to date, but we'll likely have many more to come. This feels very urgent and this feels like it's very of-the-moment in a way that no other novel could be; sadly, this leads me to feel it's a bit rushed, awkward, and badly edited at times—not to mention that it feels like what was one imagined book became another as COVID became a character in Erdrich's life and world.

[decaturmamaof2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"The door is open. Go."
Big exhale! I felt I was holding my breath for misty of the reading of this masterful storytelling. I'm a long-time trader and fan of @Louise Erdrich's work but damn, this one has me shook.

[jonimfisher · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully written story with believably flawed characters struggling with life.

[glennbell_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is a truly pointless and boring story. It revolves around a woman who was sentenced to prison for a moronic escapade of stealing a corpse that unfortunately for her had drugs stashed in the armpits unknown to her. She borrowed a vehicle from her work to perform the crime. She is of American Indian descent and marries the policeman who arrested her. She works in a bookstore where a client dies, who haunts the bookstore. The book is filled with humor but it does not help make it worth reading. It likely does not help that I find the addition of a ghost into an attempt to cover recent events such as the pandemic and George Floyd out of place and ridiculous. I understand that this book was well received by others but that does not change my opinion.

[mjspear_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The beginning was boffo... loved the pace and the surprises but was ground down by the sudden immersion into current politics (the pandemic, the George Floyd killing....) Sigh. Not escapist enough for this troubled reader.

[romonko · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I received this book as a gift and I was very excited to get it and to read it. i loved Louise Erdrich's book - The Round House. I expected to be wowed with this one, but unfortunately, it didn't wow me and it never really made sense to me. The story was ok and kind of fun. Tookie is a remarkable character, and I really liked her. One of the things I love about Louise Erdrich's writing is her wonderful characters and Tookie did not disappoint. Another thing I like about her writing is her insightful and empathic writing, and the way she shines on a light on social and cultural issues. This does occur in this book too. The book is set in present-day Minneapolis. It is written during the time of the George Floyd incident in Minneapolis, and carries on through one year of the pandemic. With wry and warm humour, Erdrich highlights the strange and unsettling times of the past few years into a totally believable narrative of what all of this was like for people who lived close to the George Floyd incident. Tookie and her husband Pollux weather the storm and live to fight another day, but not until Pollux but recover from a bout of Covid, and Tookie is haunted by a deceased customer in the bookstore where she works. That's another delight about this book. Tookie's vast knowledge of literature and books is seen throughout. This love of books helped her through a decade of incarceration for a crime that wasn't really a crime. It helped her through the haunting of the store and through the stresses of the times, and it helped her migrate through her relationships with her family and friends. Tookie carries a lot of baggage and it continues to be partially unpacked throughout the book, as we learn her backstory. What didn't ring true with me was the actual haunting itself. I don't know if the haunting was all in Tookie's head like I like to think it was, or real and frightening as it is portrayed. I found that the ghost in the story did really nothing to move the story along, or help me get to the bottom of Tookie and her very colourful life. The book is unabashedly about Tookie, and that is the best thing about it. The ghost just didn't seem to fit in anywhere in the story.

[judygibson-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book! And I love Louise Erdrich--why did I not know her before hearing What Should I Read Next? (Episode 312)? By the time this book came from the library I had forgotten that Anne said that the story encompasses some heavy historic and pandemic-times themes and was expecting a fairly lightweight "a ghost haunting a bookstore" story. This was SO much more! [light spoiler alert] Turns out the ghost is pulling out many unresolved issues in the lives of our complex and troubled characters.
A bonus for me was the setting among the urban indigenous community of Minnesota, about whom I know nothing. Also a recurring theme of the different applications of the word "sentence" in the story. I learned a lot, I hope!