Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist (鈥淭he Night Watchman,鈥 2021) returns with a story close to her heart, 鈥淭he Mighty Red.鈥 Set in the author鈥檚 native North Dakota, the title refers to the river that serves as a metaphor for life in the Red River Valley. It also carries a secret central to the story鈥檚 plot.
The slow reveal of that secret propels a good chunk of the novel, which tells the story of Kismet Poe, a teen girl caught in the middle of a love triangle featuring one of the town鈥檚 richest residents (he stands to inherit two lucrative sugar beet farms) and a homeschooled romantic who works at his mom鈥檚 bookstore.
By page 15, 18-year-old Gary Geist proposes to Kismet, who then tells her mother, 鈥淚t could be, I think, that I love him.鈥 Pages later we meet Hugo, who Kismet considers less mature, but who built his own computer and has a plan to make lots of money in the oil fields, buy a car and win Kismet鈥檚 eternal affection.
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Erdrich鈥檚 prose is lovely as she describes scenes like this one, while Kismet and Gary鈥檚 friend Eric watch birds feeding on the prairie: 鈥淭hey outflew their shadows, veered so close and at such a rate of speed it seemed at every second they would collide, but only their shadows merged and came apart. Their intricate blur of flight rose to a frenzied joy so dark and dazzling that Kismet was lost in emotion.鈥
Part of the story鈥檚 emotion comes from the contrast Erdrich establishes between a community that is economically tethered to a crop that is literally killing the earth and its inhabitants. 鈥淪ugar is a useless and even harmful substance,鈥 thinks Hugo in a moment of reverie, 鈥渁nd although this nutritionless white killer is depleting the earth鈥檚 finest cropland, you forget that when you are eating blueberry crumble.鈥
There鈥檚 a secondary plot that Erdrich spins involving Kismet鈥檚 mom, Crystal, and her husband, Martin, who works as a traveling theater arts teacher throughout North Dakota. He disappears one day during the economic meltdown of 2008, along with the church investment fund that he was managing. The plot is played partly for laughs from that point on, but Erdrich does have something to say about how economic downturns impact people like Crystal and Kismet, or as she writes: 鈥渞eal Americans 鈥 rattled, scratching, always-in-debt Americans.鈥
There鈥檚 lots more here about love and loss and the things people do when they experience the highs and lows of both. The story culminates with more backstory, as Eric and then Gary recount to Kismet what happened one winter night when they and their friends on the high school football team took an inebriated snowmobile ride on the frozen Red River.
Erdrich foreshadows it from the start of the book 鈥 Gary鈥檚 mom wonders if her son has a guardian angel 鈥 but when we finally get the truth, it鈥檚 a powerful moment, and one that sets the scene for, if not forgiveness, some measure of peace.