LaRose

In rural North Dakota, Landreaux and Ravich are friends and neighbors, further bound by their wives who are half sisters. With a single gunshot, their lives change forever, when Landreaux aims at a buck at the edge of a field bordering both properties and kills Ravich's five-year-old son instead. In a shocking act of mourning and forgiveness, Landreaux adheres to an ancient native tradition and delivers his own five-year-old son LaRose, who was also the dead boy's best friend, to the grieving parents: "Our son will be your son now…. It's the old way." From that double cleaving, both families forge new paths toward acceptance and healing, but most of all young LaRose, who moves back and forth between a family who desperately needs him and one who can never fully release him. National Book Award Winner Erdrich (The Round House) narrates her latest novel with solemnity and grace, never resorting to outbursts and manipulation. Just as her prose remains understated and subtle—shockingly so, at times—her reading never wavers from elegance and control.