Title & author
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Synopsis
The Sentence is a story of language. It’s a story about trying to find the right language—sometimes the perfect language—to convey how one feels, but oftentimes not being able to translate emotions. About lost and dying languages and the fight to preserve them in the face of white supremacy. It’s a story about building sentences and the books that contain them. And at its heart, The Sentence is a story of an Indigenous-owned bookstore, the place that houses the words, and the world through its keepers’ eyes.
Who should read this book
Anyone who loves the magic of books
What we’re thinking about
The preservation of language
Trigger warning(s)
Physical violence, colonialism, mental health (note: There are off-screen discussions to George Floyd’s murder and the story takes place during the COVID-19 pandemic)
The Sentence (Harper, 2021) is a story of language. It’s a story about trying to find the right language—sometimes the perfect language—to convey how one feels, but oftentimes not being able to translate emotions. About lost and dying languages and the fight to preserve them in the face of white supremacy. It’s a story about building sentences and the books that contain them. And at its heart, The Sentence is a story of an Indigenous-owned bookstore, the place that houses the words, and the world through its keepers’ eyes.
Louise Erdrich opens her latest novel with a dictionary. “Without a doubt,” narrator Tookie says, “had the dictionary not arrived, this light word that lay so heavily upon me would have crushed me, or what was left of me after the strangeness of what I’d done” (Erdrich, 3). Imprisoned and having just received a dictionary, Tookie looks up the word ‘sentence.’ Not only is the term relative to her own punishment, but also to the sentiments she cannot form. How does one express their thoughts when they cannot find the words? And after she is released, “now that I am rehabilitied, I only sell words” (4). Words save Tookie; she spends her time while incarcerated reading, and then wanders into a bookstore upon her release for a job. “I realized we are more brilliant than I knew” (28).
Through this bookstore, we see Tookie’s world. And not just Tookie’s world, but our world. The rise and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, the protests in Minneapolis and across the world. Running through The Sentence is an urgency. In one short time frame, we see a city, the country, break. The store begins to sell countless books on policing, racism, white supremacy. It’s no accident that Edrich includes Tookie’s quote at both the start and end: “Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters” (4). Erdrich makes clear that reading, whether this book or any other book, will not solve the world’s problems. “That video of George Floyd dying played over and over in my head…Jeronimo Yanez shooting Philando Castile in one annihilating movement. Seven shots. We’ll never be clean again, I remember thinking at the time. None of us who let this happen. But what had I done since? A few things. Not effective things” (237). And so, after long inaction, Tookie acts, largely by way of her words, finally putting together the sentences she had quieted for too long. She initiates difficult conversations with the man she loves who is also an ex-police officer. She and her daughter join a memorial and protest in solidarity. She votes.
One of the main characters in The Sentence is a ghost, a recently deceased store customer that haunts Tookie. At first it’s unclear what she wants from Tookie, but as the story progresses, it becomes clear: She, too, is in need of the perfect language, the perfect sentence, and she’s waiting on Tookie to say what she needs to hear, to act. And how will our own ghosts haunt us if we too do not act? Do not take what we read and turn it into something greater? Ten years from now, will we look back on The Sentence simply as another novel we loved, or will we consider it for what it really is: A not-so-shrouded call to action challenging all of us to find the words and use them? “Books are essential, Tookie,” Louise says when the store is given permission to operate amidst the virus (190). And they are—but books are so much more than simply the words on their pages. They are how those words inspire us, encourage us. In sum, books are only as good as how we use them.
“Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters.”
Join in
Contribute your thoughts by using the “Leave a comment” button found underneath the share buttons below. Answer one of these questions, ask your own, respond to others, and more.
In many ways, The Sentence is a recording about the day-to-day. As we follow along with Tookie and her friends in their everyday activities, it feels like so much more. How does this every-day narrative shape our perspective as a reader?
Tookie has many customers, her favorite being Dissatisfaction/Roland. What is their relationship’s purpose?
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