CW: rape, murder
The Round House by Louise Erdrich centers 13-year-old Joe, who is a Native American living on a reservation in Fargo, North Dakota, and how he and his friends are trying to solve the crime of who raped his mother at the round house and seek justice. I read this book for The Stacks Book Club, and you can listen to the book club episode of the podcast (with spoilers!) wherever you listen to your podcasts.
I liked how this book doesn't read as trauma porn. While the rape is where the story begins, it wasn't the center of the story that was being revisited as means to talk about a very difficult topic just for the sake of it. There were also teenage boy antics, justice, and murder in this book, and while these can also be heavy topics, I never felt like it was overwhelming to the point I had to put the book down.
A critical part of this book is that the crime does get solved halfway through the book, but the larger question is where the rape took place. This is significant because the jurisdiction of the case in the courts would be decided based on whether the crime occurred on reservation land or federal land, and at the round house, it's separated very oddly where it is not easy to define whether it's reservation or federal land. I found this interesting because it's something I hadn't really considered before, and I hadn't realized how that changes the court the case is ruled in, and sometimes it can change the outcome of the case too.
This book is beautifully written, and this book received the National Book Award in 2012, so it definitely has some clout behind it. There were some parts that dragged or I questioned how some of the stories the grandfather would tell in his sleep would connect to the larger story as a whole, but I found that the complexity of this story was incredibly intriguing and keeps you on your toes.
Have you read The Round House? Let me know in the comments below!
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