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The Big Ag country of North Dakota is the setting of Louise Erdrich's 14th novel, "The Mighty Red." Once the home of the Ojibwe, the Dakotas, and the Metis, the region is now home to sugar beet farmers and oil riggers.
The story takes place during the 2008-09 financial failure, which collapsed the investments of Martin Poe, a theater teacher. Martin and his wife Crystal are of mixed ethnicities, German-Native Americans, from the Turtle Mountain reservation of northern North Dakota.
They "snagged each other in an oxbow on the Red River and got stuck there." Now they live near Argus, a small town in a rapidly changing state. To save their home from repossession, Martin forges Crystal's signature to abscond with money from the Catholic church's Renovation Fund. He then disappears, abandoning Crystal and their daughter Kismet.
The Great Recession accelerated the decline of the wealthy Geist family who operated two sugar beet farms near the Poes. Gary Geist, the high school’s star quarterback, sees something mystifying and alluring about Kismet. At the same time, he is poleaxed and overcome by profound guilt after two of his friends are killed in an accident. Terrified and humbled, Gary decides his life will only return to normal if he marries Kismet. Eighteen-year-old Kismet is flattered and uneasy about Gary's impetuous affection because she finds herself in a love triangle. Kismet loves Hugo, a working-class, home-schooled genius, but her family pressures her to marry rich Gary.
The story continues into the following years, to 2024, with a series of harrowing, agonizing, and romantic incidents. These vignettes are all about the misfortunes and self-inflicted poor choices of the Poe and Geist families.
The narrative intertwines adolescent romance, suppressed relationship issues, and improbable reconciliations. "The Mighty Red" is at its best when it describes ordinary people's lives. History is interwoven into the family stories, including the Red River's flooding, the Catholic Church's role in the region, and local agricultural and environmental problems.
“The Mighty Red” is a novel of place, like most of Erdrich’s novels. It has beautiful passages about the landscape of the Flickertail State, tender loving moments, and descriptions of the power of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people's lives.
A recurring motif is the transition from nature and Native control of the land to "the pragmatic nihilism of industrial sugar farming" today, which has polluted the Red River with the runoff of pesticides and herbicides. The replacement of blue stem, switch grass, and fescue ,with genetically modified sugar beets, "coddled in their chemical dust" demonstrates the shift in power from the Native American societies to white settlers seeking to capitalize on the rich soil of the Red River valley. The author deftly warns that the sugar industry is destroying the health of humans and the land.
"The Mighty Red" is a novel about a beautiful prairie community whose members must cope with devastating consequences as powerful forces oppose them. It is about humans' frayed connection to the earth and the mystery and marvel of romance. Teenagers and adults alike will enjoy this 372-page fast read published by Harper Collins.
About the author: Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the award-winning author of 14 novels and volumes of poetry, children's books, and a collection of short stories about Native Americans. Her themes include identity, family, and the Native American experience. She won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her novel “Love Medicine.” The author owns Birchbark Books, a small independent Minnesota bookstore.
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