future home of the living god by louise erdrich

The “adopted child of Minneapolis liberals,” Cedar grew up knowing that she was a member of the Ojibwe tribe, and enjoyed the minor celebrity this brought her in school: “My observations on birds, bugs, worms, clouds, cats and dogs were quoted.” But to her chagrin, she has now learned her bourgeois birth family, despite being Native American, has “no special powers or connections with healing spirits or sacred animals” they own a convenience store. As Cedar Hawk Songmaker, the book’s narrator, puts it: “Maybe God has decided that we are an idea not worth thinking anymore.”Ĭedar is a character who could have been invented only by Erdrich, whose fiction has often explored the uncomfortable intersections between Native Americans and those of us who arrived on this continent more recently. For reasons no one understands, evolution has stopped it is now running backward. Set in an indeterminate future that could well be just a few decades away - 90 degrees is “an unusually cool day for August” in Minnesota, where the novel is set, and the first winter without snow has come and gone - the characters here are facing an unanticipated crisis. The narrative that emerges is a literally uplifting story of progression toward an ultimate, inevitable goal.īut what if the beings we are aren’t either inevitable or ultimate? This is the premise of “Future Home of the Living God,” Louise Erdrich’s fascinating if not entirely satisfying new novel. And finally a shape recognizable as the humans we are, striding proudly forth out of the evolutionary murk. Its iconic images were depicted in profile to emphasize the changes in posture: first a chimpanzee on all fours, followed by a hunched ape/man, which we thought of as the “missing link.” Next came the slightly less hunched Homo habilis, holding a tool, then Homo erectus, upright and stocky. $28.99.Ī poster called “The Evolution of Man” hung in my fifth grade classroom you probably have seen it too. FUTURE HOME OF THE LIVING GOD By Louise Erdrich 269 pp.

Future home of the living god by louise erdrich