Erdrich gives such a wonderful sense of character and place. Within the first 20 pages I really knew and understood at least 5 of the main characters and their motivations. ( )

This is a novel about a 13-year-old boy growing up in an Indian reservation in North Dakota. There is a lot of detail about his tribal culture. Their religious gathering, their folklore, their traditional dress, their food. Also a lot of detail about the footprints the Western culture left on their reservation. The Catholic church activities, the messiness surrounding how some lands belong to the tribe and some land belong to state government, the government construction that never gets done. And then the details surrounding social injustice, namely, when the boy protagonists's mother was raped by a white man, on a location she was unable to identify, the rapist could not be prosecuted because different laws apply to tribal land versus non-tribal land, tribal members versus non-tribal (a.k.a. white) members. Because they didn't know on what type of land the crime took place, they didn't know which law to use to prosecute the rapist, so the rapist ran free.

So this is a story about the boy and his family facing huge injustice living in an Indian reservation, and the measures taken by the boy (and his father, but the book focused on the boy) to deal with the injustice. When the plot focused on investigation and revenge, the book could read like a thriller novel. But the majority of the book is slow-paced, because the author wove into many details and reservation life, as well as plight of several of the boy's family and friends who live on the reservation. ( )

Louise Erdrich's books always start slowly for me. I find it hard to get into them, put them down and start something else. But then if I persevere a point comes where I can't stop reading until the book is finished. The Round House is a coming of age story narrated in the voice of a 13 year old boy whose mother was brutally assaulted. The setting is an indian reservation in North Dakota. The boy, Joe is the son of a judge in the tribal court. There is a mystery involved in The Round House, who assaulted Joe'During the course of the book we learn that the tribal courts on reservations are very limited when a non-native commits a crime on reservation land. This story took place in 1988, some of the limits to tribal jurisdictions have been corrected since then. We also learned that native american women are much more vulnerable to rape and assault and most such crimes do not result in an arrest or conviction. Many of the victims of rape on reservations are assaulted by non-native men. Joe struggles with identity, faith and responsibility and begins to grow into an adult man. ( )

I often don't agree with the juries of various book awards, but this time the National Book Award people chose the right book. The Round House is just the right mix of suspense, psychological dilemmas, love and betrayal, social commentary, tribal and personal mythology and humor. I couldn't put it down, it was so rich in all aspects of life.

It is this abundance of all the different layers of life that I admire in Louise Erdrich's writing. I felt the story deeply. Joe was very realistically drawn with all the beliefs and baggage he already had before his mother was attacked and raped.

In some reviews I saw complaints about the digressions into mythology and the mention of ghosts. The book is set on an Indian reservation, how else can an author the culture and a people's concerns across?! In my eyes it was necessary to explain how the minds of Joe and the people around him worked. Erdrich showed the whole complexity of life.

I also hope that this novel will help to get the various governments to agree on a way to prosecute crimes by non Indians on tribal land, and to eliminate holes in the law. ( )

First, a rant: Dear "literary" author: No one is impressed with your decision to eschew the use of quotation marks for dialogue. In fact, it is rather pretentious. JUST USE THE FRIGGIN' QUOTATION MARKS like everyone else!

Okay, rant over. As you may have guessed, The Round House, a coming of age tale set on a reservation with a young Native American boy of 13 as the narrator, does not use quotation marks. Why not? I have no idea. As far as I can tell, Cormac McCarthy stopped doing it and now lots of quote-unquote literary authors are jumping on the bandwagon. It doesn't really seem to serve any stylistic purpose other than to ostentatiously announce that This Is a Literary Work.

Okay, rant really over now. The Round House was okay. The National Book award is a stretch, I felt. The book plodded along at times, and got bogged down in asides dealing with Native folklore and lectures about Native vs. United States and state laws and such. I had no trouble putting it aside. Yet it was modestly interesting and modestly poignant and modestly humorous at times. It brought up some fairly thought provoking moral issues, including the whole dynamic of using the white man's justice system to solve a crime against an Indian vs. a Native American sort of idea of obtaining justice. It had a vivid sense of place & was pretty well written aside from the lack of quotation marks for dialogue. ( )