The Round House-轻识

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

Written with undeniable urgency, and illuminating the harsh realities of contemporary life in a community where Ojibwe and white live uneasily together, The Round House is a brilliant and entertaining novel, a masterpiece of literary fiction. Louise Erdrich embraces tragedy, the comic, a spirit world very much present in the lives of her all-too-human characters, and a tale of injustice that is, unfortunately, an authentic reflection of what happens in our own world today.

路易丝•厄德里克（Louise Erdrich, 1954— ）

诗人、小说家，生于美国明尼苏达州，父亲是德裔美国人，母亲是奥吉布瓦族人，外祖父曾任部落酋长。厄德里克阅历丰富，大器早成，是美国当代最多产、最活跃、最有成就的作家之一，是美国印第安文艺复兴第二次大潮的代表人物，曾获美国全国图书奖、全国书评家协会奖、美国国会图书馆小说奖、纳尔逊•阿尔格伦短篇小说奖、苏•考夫曼奖、《洛杉矶时报》小说奖等文学大奖，入围普利策小说奖，七次荣膺欧•亨利短篇小说奖。她已出版了二十余部作品，被收入多部文学选集。