The absence of birds made Diz uneasy, but he wasn’t spraying birds, was he? Yet there were fewer birds around his farm. Used to be robins hunting worms in the furrows. Used to be blackbirds around the green bins. Owls at dawn, rats in their claws. Well, maybe he had a sudden thought those could have been the rats and mice he had to poison. He thought back to how birds used to chatter as the sun rose. Now, a few sparrows, maybe, or more often just the hiss and boom of wind.
While working in her garden, Crystal appreciated how their families were like the Lord’s ivy, a weed ineradicable by human means. It grows low to the ground and can’t be mowed. It throws its stems long and roots straight down every few inches, just like the people along the river. There seems to be a Frechette or a Poe anywhere you land, but low-key, invisible. The Lord’s ivy, or ground ivy, creeping charlie, thrives under the leaves of other plants and goes wherever it is not wanted. It just keeps throwing itself along stem by stem and blooms so modestly you’d hardly mark the tiny purple flowers. People step down and pass, the weed springs up, uncrushable.
But, implanted or not, there is plenty of stress to go around.
Louise Erdrich in front of her Minneapolis bookstore – image from The Paris Review – shot by Angela Erdrich
Romantic stress
The core of the novel is an ill-considered relationship. Kismet and Gary are teenagers, rich with hormones and needs. But are they ready to be married? She had planned to go to college. Gary is the star quarterback, but has a need for Kismet that has nothing to do with their romance. And then there is Hugo, brilliant, ambitious, and totally in love with her, (… he closed his eyes and thought about how he was helpless in the tractor beam of love.) centering his life on making himself successful enough to woo her away from Gary. Coming of age is a major element, and is wonderfully portrayed. Erdrich says in the B&N interview that she had really wanted to write a love triangle. Well, among other things. She also wanted to write about …
Financial stress
I really set it in 2008…because I don’t feel our country has ever really dealt with the fallout from 2008. I feel like there was so much that there was so much loss, that people lost homes, people lost jobs, things hollowed out in such a big way and that was never really addressed. We never really came back from that time, 2008, 2009 into the present, because the pandemic happened. – from the B&N interview
Winnie Geist lived through the Reagan era in which her family’s farm was lost, sold for a fraction of its worth. David Stockman is name-dropped from the 1980s.
While she was in high school, the government accelerated her family’s loan payments and blow after blow had landed. They’d lost their home, their farm, everything. Except one another, they kept saying, except us.
Crystal Poe is Kismet’s mother. When ne’er-do-well-actor dad, Martin, goes walkabout, Crystal has to sell off possessions to keep afloat.
Erdrich would like to see Irene Bedard as Crystal – from the Hoda & Jenna interview – image from Wikipedia
Ecological stress
Connection to the land is always a feature of Louise Erdrich’s work. The Lord’s ivy quote at the top reflects the root of this. Winnie’s angst at the loss of her family farm offers another. There are multiple instances of characters expressing, and acting on, (or not) concerns for the well-being of the ground on which they live and work. It is the treatment of the land that gets the most attention, the tension between using chemical-based products to maximize production per acre, versus a less corporate approach that supports a more ecologically balanced, restorative brand of farming.
I don’t think about politics when I write. I think about the characters and the narrative. My novels aren’t op-eds. Nobody reads a book unless the characters are powerful—bad or good or hopelessly ordinary. They have to have magnetism. If you write your characters to fit your politics, generally you get a boring story. If you let the people and the settings in the book come first, there’s a better chance that you can write a book shaped by politics that maybe people want to read. – from the Paris Review interview
Parental stress
Erdrich has four daughters, so has had plenty of experience with mother-child interactions. She says she loved being the mother of teens, seeing the excitement of their choices, and trying to be more of a guide than a hard-liner. Crystal struggles to influence Kismet without coming on too strong, which would predictably result in increased resistance. Gary’s mother clearly loves him, and goes out of her way to see to her baby’s happiness, maybe too far out of her way. Crystal and Winnie are definitely both afraid for their children, although for very different reasons.
Erdrich would like to see Isabella LeBlanc as Kismet – from the Hoda & Jenna interview – image from Minnesota Native News
A bit of fun
There is a series of flamboyant crimes committed by an outlaw, who acquires a nickname and a fair bit of public fame, in the same way that notorious historical criminals like Billy the Kid drew public interest and admiration.
This book is set during the economic collapse of 2008–09. What Martin does is only what a lot of people wanted to do. I didn’t think of what he did as villainy, but yes, I suppose it was absolutely crazy, and, you know, fun to write. I have to amuse myself. – from the Bookpage interview
There was more that motivated Erdrich. She is from the Red River Valley of North Dakota, has much family in the area and returns frequently. She wanted to write about the changes she had seen there. (like the mighty Red, history was a flood.) One element of this was that her first job was hauling sugar beets. The industry was undeveloped at the time. She wanted to write about how it had evolved over the last thirty years. The original title of the novel was Crystal.
When I started it I thought I would be writing about the 2011 lockout by Crystal Sugar and how it impacted people who were working there. They lost a lot in terms of their insurance and their benefits and wages…it was a really tough lockout. I wanted to write about that at first, but then I started writing something else entirely and I enjoyed writing it more so I kept with that one and it became more about a number of people living along the river. – from the B&N interview
Many of Louise Erdrich’s novels (this is her nineteenth) have centered on Native American history, lore, and contemporary experience. While there are several characters here whose Native roots are noted, this is not really a book about the Native experience, the way that The Round House, LaRose, The Night Watchman, and others are.
Magical realism remains a sharp tool in Erdrich’s kit. Crystal listens to a late-night radio show that centers on strangeness, including angels. A caller wonders if her child is protected by a guardian angel, given the number of close calls they had had. One character is haunted by the ghost of a friend. The aroma of a used dress speaks to its new owner. One character has a presentiment about an imminent danger.
Erdrich would like to see Brett Kelly as Hugo – from the Hoda & Jenna interview – image from Alchetron
There is a mystery here as well. what happened at “the party” and why is it such a hush-hush subject? Something terrible is hinted at. There are ripples emanating from this event that inform multiple character arcs.
There are a few literary references applied here. Madame Bovary is one. If you know the story, the echoes will boom at you. If not, it is no trick to pull up an abstract. Ditto for Anna Karenina. (see EXTRA STUFF for links)
As with any work of fiction it requires that we relate, at least somewhat, to at least some of the characters. Erdrich has a gift for writing characters that, whatever they may do, we can appreciate their motives, even if we may not agree with their choices. This is a major strength of the novel. She crafts rounded humans, ambitious, frightened, rational, irrational, loving, thoughtful, feckless, smart in wildly divergent ways, and, ultimately, satisfying. She does this while incorporating a payload of ecological concern, relationship insight, and an appreciation of history’s impact on lived experience, while adding a layer of magic to aid our understanding, and including a few laughs to smooth the way. Louise Erdrich is a national treasure, a reliable source of quality literary fiction, and an ongoing delight to read. The Mighty Red is indeed a mighty read.
Review posted – 12/13/24
Publication dates
———-Hardcover – 10/1/24
———-Trade paperback – 11/04/25
I received an ARE of The Mighty Red from Harper (through my Book Goddess dealer) in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks, dear.
This review is cross-posted on Goodreads. Stop by and say Hi!
=======================================EXTRA STUFF
Interviews
—–*Barnes & Noble Book ClubLouise Erdrich discusses THE MIGHTY RED with Lexie Smyth and Jenna Seery – with Lexi Smyth and Jenna Seery – video 45:37 – This is the one you want to check out
—–Today with Hoda and Jenna – Author Louise Erdrich talks ‘The Mighty Red,’ takes fan questions
—–my link text
—–The Paris Review my link text
—–Book Page – Red is an earth tone by Alice Cary
Other Louise Erdrich novels I have reviewed
—–2021 – The Sentence
—–2020 – The Night Watchman
—–2017 – Future Home of the Living God
—–2016 – LaRose
—–2010 – Shadow Tag
—–2012 – The Round House
—–2008 – The Plague of Doves
—–2005 – The Painted Drum
Items of Interest
—–Project Gutenberg – Madame Bovary – full text
—–GetAbstract – of Madame Bovary
—–Project Gutenberg – Anna Karenina – full text
—–ReWire The West – Anna Karenina: Summary and Analysis
—–North Dakota State University – WHY IS THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH SO VULNERABLE TO FLOODING?
—–MPR News – 20-month lockout over, sugar workers brace for return to work by Dan Gunderson
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