Book Review: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence is a vividly insightful exploration of the state of contemporary America, told through the lens of its native American protagonist, Tookie, as she navigates life years after a long incarceration. Set in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Tookie and her family undergo a turbulent start to the 2020s, with the isolation and anxiety of the COVID-19 lockdowns and socio-political upheaval following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer. The novel combines elements of the urban life with magical realism and paranormal suspense to bring about a humorous yet heartfelt story of identity, justice, and ultimately, redemption.

Tookie’s story begins with the tale of her incarceration. She steals a body, unknowingly transports drugs hidden inside it, and accepts money for doing so, all while under the influence herself, and thus is sentenced to 60 years in prison. Young Tookie could be the personification of the failures of the American system, especially towards the Native American population. As she comments on page 22, “Native Americans are the most oversentenced people currently imprisoned.” The overincarceration of Native American people, according to various studies and reports, is tied intimately to the history of colonial violence, and such policies are upheld in this day and age as well. This goes to show the need for criminal justice reform in the American system, especially concerning minority communities.

The novel is a meditation on what it is like to be a Native American today, to be torn between  allegiance to one’s roots and the guilt of moving on with the times. Erdrich eloquently writes on page 23, “…most of us do not make money our one fixed star. Not enough to wipe clean the love of our ancestors.” While simultaneously critiquing the hyper-capitalist economic structure of the United States, she pays homage to indigenous traditions and way of life. It is a commonly used trope in North American horror stories, from Stephen King’s bestselling Pet Sematary (1983) to the movie, The Amityville Horror (1979), where the true secret of the haunting is a cursed land, built atop an ancient Indian burial ground. Renee Bergland writes in The National Uncanny, “The American subject…is obsessed with an originary sin against Native people that both engenders that subject and irrevocably stains it. Native American ghosts haunt American literature because the American nation is compelled to return again and again to an encounter that makes it both sorry and happy, a defiled grave upon which it must continually rebuild the American subject.” The Sentence turns this euro-centric trope on its head by exploring Native peoples’ beliefs, their rituals around death, and their connection to ghosts and spirits. Following the death of a customer, Flora returns as a ghost to haunt Tookie’s bookstore. While Tookie attempts to understand what Flora’s spirit wants from her, she realizes that Flora ultimately wants Tookie’s gratitude for having saved her life as a child. This mirrors the positionality of the contemporary indigenous population in the US, and the way are expected to be grateful simply for being allowed to exist, and the concessions offered to them by the American government, such as tax exemptions, financial aid and land reservations.  

The novel’s timeline covers two big experiences that occurred within the recent memory of the American populace; the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, and the Black Lives Matter protests. The lockdowns impacted the world; the universal feelings of isolation, anxieties surrounding failing businesses and watching helplessly while loved ones get sick, are explored. The phrase on page 177, “Soon the terrible stories started…” hints at the spread of misinformation that caused confusion on a mass scale, which many people called an “infodemic.” This spread of misinformation was aided by the official tweets of political leaders like Donald Trump, or as Pollux hilariously dubs him on page 178, “orangey.” Practices like hoarding necessities from supermarkets, incorrectly wearing masks, etc. which occurred in real life across the world, are also spoken about in the novel.

When George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis triggered nationwide ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests, Tookie contemplates the nature of police brutality in the US. Pollux used to be a tribal policeman, and she remembers Pollux’s grandmother’s warning to him about the power of the uniform. As page 283 details, “What entered felt to Pollux like a crooked thing. Sometimes it lurched…The anger that led to a violent refusal to feel. Then to even connect with his people.” She wonders that the violence police officers witness on a daily basis leads them to develop a lack of empathy, which is especially dangerous when combined with preconceived biases against certain groups of people. Conversations regarding de-funding the police, and debates surrounding racial profiling occurred across the country during this tumultuous period. Indeed, the origins of modern-day policing in the US can be traced to the slave patrols established to discipline and squash slave uprisings. The novel explores questions surrounding whether a system so racially entrenched can even be changed for the better.

On page 292, Erdrich names real black, indigenous and brown people who were victims of police brutality similar to George Floyd, and how the perpetrators of the violence are repeatedly protected by the establishment. She writes:

I thought of Charles Lone Eagle and John Boney slung in the trunk of a squad car and dumped at a Minneapolis ER by Officers Schumer and Lardy, who hardly got their knuckles rapped. You rarely hear about police killings of Indigenous people, though the numbers are right up there with Black people, because so often it happens on remote reservations, and the police don’t wear cameras. So I was thankful, however shattering the truth, for the witnesses with the cameras.

Native Americans are often the forgotten minority in conversations surrounding police brutality criminal justice reform, and everyday discrimination. Louise Erdrich’s novel brings the conversation surrounding the indigenous experience to the forefront, and is extremely relevant to contemporary American politics.  A second Trump presidency in the US will significantly impact Native American issues. For example, his stance on the promotion of fossil fuel production, leading to increased emission of greenhouse gases and further climate change, will disproportionately affect the indigenous populations.

The novel reminds us how important it is to decenter the colonial narrative which has dominated the political and social processes for decades, if not centuries.