The Mighty Red

In her luminous latest, Erdrich (The Night Watchman) offers a searing story of the disparate community and the struggling farms in North Dakota’s Red River Valley following the 2008 financial crisis. Crystal hauls sugar beets for the Geist family farm, pinching pennies to pay off her mortgage; meanwhile, her husband, Martin, a failed actor turned theater teacher, absconds with the church’s funds for a new building. Crystal and Martin’s daughter Kismet, a high school senior overwhelmed with desperation and hopelessness, agrees to marry football star Gary, though she’s already given her heart to awkward, home-schooled Hugo. Marin Ireland offers a stunning performance of this understated yet powerful work, a novel that reveals the corrosive nature of guilt, frustration, and anger. Ireland’s portrait of a community transformed by industrialized agriculture communicates the grinding weight of societal expectations and the accompanying lack of prospects or alternatives. Ireland’s character voices aren’t dramatically distinct, but listeners wouldn’t want anything different. Her voicings get to the heart of the characters, capturing their fragile selves—tender, hurting, and hopeful.