"Law is meant to put out society’s brush fires, but in Native American history it has often acted more like the wind. Louise Erdrich turns this dire reality into a powerful human story in her new novel, in which a Native American woman is raped somewhere in the vicinity of a sacred round house, and seeking justice becomes almost as devastating as the crime. The round house itself stands on reservation land, where tribal courts are in charge, but the suspect is white, and tribal courts can’t prosecute non-­Native people. Federal law would also seem to apply, but the rape may have taken place on a strip of land that is part of a state park, where North Dakota’s authority is in force, or on another that was sold by the tribe and is thus considered “fee land,” administered under a separate tangle of statutes.

When he hears that the judge handling the case is uncertain whether the accused man can be charged at all, the 13-year-old boy whose mother was raped pursues his own quest for justice. Narrating this gripping story years later, having himself become a public prosecutor, Joe shows how a seemingly isolated crime has many roots. In the process, this young boy will experience a heady jolt of adolescent freedom and a brutal introduction to both the sorrows of grown-up life and the weight of his people’s past — “the gut kick of our history, which I was bracing to absorb.”"

Get the Story:
Disturbing the Spirits (The New York Times 10/14)

Another Review:
A tribal matter (The San Antonio Express-News 10/13)

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NPR: Q&A with Louise Erdrich on law and order in Indian Country (10/3)
Review: Louise Erdrich crusades for justice in 'The Round House' (10/3)
Review: Louise Erdrich explores justice issues for 'Round House' (10/1)