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Thursday, January 18, 2018

Future House of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

There is a bit of Margaret Atwood going around these days, and this book is very much in the family that for me starts with The Handmaid's Tale, a book I both hate and think is memorable as well as a cautionary tale.
The review in The Guardian aptly sums up where we are in our new world where every vile thing that comes into a narrow mind finds its way into a Twitter stream, often with attribution.  No longer do the misogynists feel like they need to hide.  Here it goes. Troll: “Look out the window and name one thing women have made.” Without missing a beat, a woman tweeted back: “EVERY. SINGLE. HUMAN. BEING.”  Really?  These men are so quick to claim the accomplishments of their gender without a hint of the talent that went into it.  And that, female fertility and the male need for that to be a point of subjugation and not power, is at the core of this book.  Erdrich is amazing in her insight, her way of telling a chilling tale without it seeming to be overtly terrifying, and the abundance of her work across a number of equally awful human traits is something to be in awe of and this book is no less so.  Beautifully done, and ultimately haunting. 

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