Top

The Mighty Red

On sale

30th September 2024

Price: £24.99

Select a format

Selected: Audiobook Downloadable / ISBN-13: 9781405563710

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

‘Erdrich remains one of the world’s literary giants’ Boston Globe

In Argus, North Dakota, a fraught wedding is taking place.

Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe. Gary thinks Kismet is the answer to all of his problems; Kismet can’t even imagine her future, let alone the kind of future Gary might offer. During a clumsy proposal, Kismet misses her chance to say ‘no’ and so the die is cast.

Hugo has been in love with Kismet for years. He has been her friend, confidante and occasionally her lover – and now she is marrying Gary, Hugo is determined to steal her back.

Meanwhile Kismet’s mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary’s family, and on her nightly truck drives along the highway from the farm to the factories, she tunes in to the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future – both her daughter’s and her own.

Starkly beautiful like the landscape it inhabits, The Mighty Red is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets. And as with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendour.

A new novel by Louise Erdrich is a major literary event; gorgeous and heartrending, The Mighty Red is a triumph.

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
[A] deft, almost winsome novel. . . . Erdrich's writing feels both effortless and wise. . . . In this tender and capacious story, love and tragedy mingle along the river and into the world
Oprah Daily (The Best Books of Fall)
In the hands of this master storyteller, everything is effortlessly connected. . . . Fearlessly depicting the toughest losses and darkest threats, Erdrich always finds hope
Boston Globe
Erdrich remains one of the world's literary giants
Publishers Weekly, starred review
'Erdrich excels at the slow simmer, and once again she delivers a deliciously seductive masterwork'
Michael Donkor, Guardian
Erdrich's achievement is pretty remarkable: a [narrative] voice with brio and lightness that wends and weaves between modes and moods. It's unpredictable and multifaceted