larose

"North Dakota, late summer, 1999. Landreaux Iron stalks a deer along the edge of the property bordering his own. He shoots with easy confidence—but when the buck springs away, Landreaux realizes he’s hit something else, a blur he saw as he squeezed the trigger. When he staggers closer, he realizes he has killed his neighbor’s five-year-old son, Dusty Ravich.

The youngest child of his friend and neighbor, Peter Ravich, Dusty was best friends with Landreaux’s five-year-old son, LaRose. The two families have always been close, sharing food, clothing, and rides into town; their children played together despite going to different schools; and Landreaux’s wife, Emmaline, is half sister to Dusty’s mother, Nola. Horrified at what he’s done, the recovered alcoholic turns to an Ojibwe tribe tradition—the sweat lodge—for guidance, and finds a way forward. Following an ancient means of retribution, he and Emmaline will give LaRose to the grieving Peter and Nola. 'Our son will be your son now,' they tell them.

LaRose is quickly absorbed into his new family. Plagued by thoughts of suicide, Nola dotes on him, keeping her darkness at bay. His fierce, rebellious new “sister,” Maggie, welcomes him as a coconspirator who can ease her volatile mother’s terrifying moods. Gradually he’s allowed shared visits with his birth family, whose sorrow mirrors the Raviches’ own. As the years pass, LaRose becomes the linchpin linking the Irons and the Raviches, and eventually their mutual pain begins to heal.

But when a vengeful man with a long-standing grudge against Landreaux begins raising trouble, hurling accusations of a cover-up the day Dusty died, he threatens the tenuous peace that has kept these two fragile families whole.

Inspiring and affecting, LaRose is a powerful exploration of loss, justice, and the reparation of the human heart, and an unforgettable, dazzling tour de force from one of America’s most distinguished literary masters." (taken from goodreads)

i'd been wanting to read more books by native american authors lately in order to expand my literary horizons, and luckily for me, larose was assigned for a class i took this past semester! 

larose has to be one of the most beautiful novels i've ever read. it illustrates themes of generational trauma and spiritual healing through magical realism. the family dynamics within this novel are so complex and intricate, amongst the iron and ravich family seperately but also in how the two families interact with one another. there is a mutual exchange of taking between the irons and the ravichs, but  one event is a lot more permanent than the other.

there are a lot of lines that denote the difference between “us” and “them” within the book. while community is most definitely capable of fostering a safe space for minorities and outsiders within a broader nation, this novel exemplifies that community is also able to mimic the exclusionary components of a nation. romeo’s character is a good example of this, since in the book he was once apart of the group but then gets pushed past the boundary of belonging, turning into an outsider.