BookPage Top Pick in Fiction, November 2017

Add Louise Erdrich (LaRose, The Round House) to the growing list of literary authors to dabble in dystopian fiction. Her latest work, Future Home of the Living God, imagines a frightening, not-too-distant time, made all the more terrifying by its plausibility. The U.S. Congress has expanded a set of policies that began as the Patriot Act so that pregnant women can be "sequestered in hospitals in order to give birth under controlled circumstances."

The reason for this expansion is not made immediately clear, but it becomes apparent through the story of 26-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, "the adopted child of Minneapolis liberals." Born on an Ojibwe reservation, Cedar has never known her biological parents. As the novel opens, it's been a year since Cedar's birth mother sent her a letter asking if they could meet. Cedar ignored the request. But now that Cedar is four months pregnant, her perspective has changed, and she decides to meet her birth parents. But that's not all that has changed. A biological disaster has occurred, "evolution has reversed," and pregnant women are sent to detention centers so they can be monitored. Cedar is of particular interest to authorities, as they believe she is carrying one of the few "normal" babies not suffering from abnormalities.

Written as a diary to her unborn child, Future Home of the Living God chronicles Cedar's experiences and the mysterious personages she encounters, most notably an omnipresent figure named Mother who appears on turned-off computer monitors and coos, "How are you feeling? I care. I'd like to know."

If parts of this novel are pulpier than Erdrich's previous work, the result is still a chilling work of speculative fiction and a bracing cautionary tale about environmental deterioration and the importance of women's control of their own bodies.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Award-winning novelist Louise Erdrich, known for her realistic portrayals of American Indian life, moves into the realm of speculative fiction with Future Home of the Living God. Twenty-six and pregnant, Cedar Hawk Songmaker is living in a dying world. Instead of progressing, evolution appears to be moving in reverse: Plants have a prehistoric quality, and pregnant women are bearing primitive infants. Cedar was adopted by a kind, forward-thinking couple in Minneapolis, but she hopes to connect with her Ojibwe birth mother. Presented as a letter written by Cedar to the child she carries, this haunting tale portrays America as a police state in which pregnant women are imprisoned. When Cedar is captured and held in a hospital, she must fight to survive. Convincingly rendered and filled with suspense, this futuristic tale is a remarkable departure for Erdrich. Her storytelling skills are on full display in this all-too-resonant narrative.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

 

Born on an Ojibwe reservation, Cedar Songmaker was adopted by Sera and Glen, an ultraliberal couple who made sure Cedar never forgot her tribal roots. Now 26, single, and pregnant, Cedar is living in a dystopian future, where a biological calamity appears to be reversing evolution. To tamp down panic, cable and telecommunications companies have been seized. Many women are dying in childbirth, their babies not viable. An ultrasound indicates that Cedar's child might be perfect, which sets her on the run from laws that call for rounding up and incarcerating mothers-to-be until delivery. Whom can she trust? Phil, the father of her child; her tribal family, who could spirit her to Canada; her adoptive parents, who have disappeared? In a narrative that is propulsive, wry, and keenly observant, Cedar records her fears in a diary for her unborn baby. Though Erdrich (Round House; LaRose) struggles to wrap up these observances in a single, cohesive message, she unpacks a Pandora's box of contemporary thematic threads, including environmental devastation, religious intolerance, censorship, and government overreach of women's reproductive rights. VERDICT Quite different from Erdrich's previous work, this chilling speculative fiction is perfect for readers seeking the next Handmaid's Tale. [See Prepub Alert, 5/8/17.]—Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

With evolution seemingly running in reverse (women are giving birth to an apparently primitive species), Cedar Hawk Songmaker is desperate to find her Ojibwe birth mother before telling her adoptive parents that she is pregnant. Soon she's on the run from a registry of expectant mothers. The inimitable Erdrich catches the dystopian zeitgeist; with a 300,000-copy first printing.

Set in Minnesota in a dystopian future in which evolution is going haywire, much of this startling new work of speculative fiction by Erdrich (LaRose) takes the form of a diary by pregnant Cedar Hawk Songmaker addressed to her unborn child. Happily raised and well-educated by her adopted parents Sera and Glen Songmaker, Cedar decides nevertheless to visit her Ojibwe birth family on the rez up north. But times are strange: "our world is running backward. Or forward. Or maybe sideways." Flora and fauna are taking on prehistoric characteristics, and there is talk of viruses. It isn't long before pregnant women are being rounded up. Cedar meets up again with her baby's father, Phil, and for a while she hides with him. But eventually she is caught by the authorities, who reveal nothing about what is happening. A hospital incarceration, escape, violence, and murder ensue as Cedar and other pregnant women she meets along the way—helped by the valiant Sera, Cedar's adoptive mother—will do anything to protect themselves and their babies. Erdrich's characters are brave and conscientious, but none of them really come across as people; they act mostly as vehicles for Erdrich's ideas. Those ideas, however—reproductive freedom, for one, and faith in and respect for the natural world—are strikingly relevant. Erdrich has written a cautionary tale for this very moment in time. (Nov.)