Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

 

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich is a near-future dystopia in which pregnant women are sent to concentration camps, biological evolution seems to be reversing itself, news is scarce, governments are failing, and pretty soon martial law isn't even enough to control the streets.  In the midst of this, Cedar Hawk Songmaker, the adopted daughter of a pair of Minneapolis liberals, finds herself pregnant and running from those who would seek to place her in a detention facility.

I was not ready for this.

First, I still have vivid images of police officers taking over public transit in Minneapolis during the George Floyd riots and the idea of martial law in Minneapolis doesn't seem as far from reality as it used to.  Second, the scene in which Cedar is traveling around, eating a diner, knowing that *something* is very wrong, but noticing that everything is still normal, was also very reminiscent of events in 2020, early pandemic when we somehow thought we were going to be just home for a couple of weeks.  And then when Cedar was hiding cigarettes, alcohol, and ammunition in her home, I just sort of felt sick to my stomach.

Also, I'm still not really sure what happened in this book.  The actual logistics of the evolutionary reversism are puzzling, as is the plot. Characters appear and disappear and I'm sure they're doing things off-page, but it's never really clear what those things are.  Cedar is a writer herself and I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be getting something out of the excerpts of her writing, but all I'm getting is that Cedar is fond of ambiguity. 

Ah.  In general, I didn't like this book. I don't know if I would have liked this book pre-2020. I enjoyed the Minneapolis references and the jokes about Wayzata, but I'm not sure if that would have been enough to keep me invested.  I've read that Erdrich is an amazing author, but I'm not sure if I'll be seeking more of her books out after reading this.