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It is a rare book that can create unbearable tension right from the very first pages. But from the start, it’s obvious that Louise Erdrich is in full charge of her narrative. “When the buck popped away he realized he’d hit something else—there had been a blur the moment he squeezed the trigger. Only when he walked forward to investigate and looked down did he understand that he has killed his neighbor’s son.��

Landreaux Iron, an Ojibwe man, a loving husband and father, and a recovering alcoholic, kills his neighbor’s son while stalking a buck. To atone for his actions, he and his life Emmeline agree to share their youngest son LaRose �� a 5-year-old boy who is the exact age of the dead son of their neighbors �� with the bereaved parents.

LaRose is not the first person in the Iron family who has borne that name, a name that is synonymous with mirage. There have been five LaRoses in all, and each of them is special in his or her own way. Erdrich writes, “That name would protect him from the unknown, from what had been let loose with the accident. Sometimes energy of this nature, chaos, ill luck, goes out of the world and begets and begets.��

LaRose is called upon to function as the bridge between families, a bridge that heals. Bridges abound in LaRose: the bridge between the traditional and the contemporary, between loss and redemption, between youth and adulthood, between the real world and the mythic one. There are also bridges among the generations, all of whom share hardship and embody a sense of survival.

Over the course of this amazing novel, we discover the first LaRose, sold by her mother, misused by her purchaser, and almost annihilated by her Indian body school. She links to the other LaRoses, evolving to the young boy who is the latest link to the tragedies that befall the family. LaRose in his own way is a healer, a Savior. Louise Erdrich has one again created something very special.