I was happy to see Ron Charles’ enthusiasm for Louise Erdrich’s latest book and it turns out that I share it. This one begins in 2008 in North Dakota’s Red River Valley where the economy centers on sugar beets and gives brief updates to the present time. The last book I read of hers, The Beet Queen, written in 1986, begins in 1932, and has a character Wallace who introduces beet growing and processing to the area. That book ends when beets have become so important that the town chooses a beet queen.
The author creates characters that are appealing or lively and if not, we learn to care for them. Crystal drives a sugar beet truck for 12 hours each night to take the beets from the fields to the processing plant. I think she was my favorite, perhaps because the spaghetti sauce she made was like the one I love: carrots, onion, garlic, basil, oregano, tomatoes, and tomato paste. I never knew of anyone else who makes spaghetti sauce with carrots in it.
Perhaps the most interestingly developed character is Winnie, whose husband’s family bought up her family farm when the industrialized sugar beet farming took over. We first meet her engineering the marriage of Kismet to her son and assume she just wants to have a fancy wedding to plan. Then she traps Kismet on the farm and we think Winnie just wants someone to clean the house which literally hadn’t happened for months. Then we learn Winnie was doing this to save her son and perhaps herself after a terrible accident. And finally Winnie turns out to be a voice opposing the monoculture farming that was killing the birds and insects but wasn’t so good at killing the weeds.
Kismet is the recent high school graduate daughter of Crystal and is a recovering goth who had worked at the local diner. When she lands at the farm, she willingly puts Winnie’s life back on track with her hard work. The only way she could get into town to visit her mother was driving an antique tractor that was so slow and bumpy that she could hardly walk after arriving. Although Kismet was in love with Hugo, she was unable to resist Gary whose need for her was apparently his best feature. Hugo’s mother owned the used bookstore where he helped out and like bookstore employees in Erdrich’s other books, he was prepared to recommend books to help customers. In his case he was even willing to suggest a book to Gary when he asked for “an instruction manual, like, for sex.”
The accident Winnie and others in the town were coping with was mentioned multiple times before it was described in detail. The details were horrific and I am left to wonder if those details were required for the book to have its impact. I’m not sure.
Brothers Diz and Gusty (Gary’s father and uncle) note that although they had proactively sprayed a field for lambsquarters, it was back. If you read about lambsquarters in Wikipedia, you learn it is a highly nutritious plant. The author says, “The rough-cut men were preparing to eradicate one of the most nutritious plants on earth in favor of growing the sugar beet, perhaps the least nutritious plant on earth.” And all the poison they put on the field would not eradicate it.
I really love this book and its characters and I haven’t even mentioned the oddest character of the group, Martin Poe, Kismet’s father. It was fun and informative to read and I have the feeling the author enjoyed writing it.
Louise Erdrich, The Mighty Red, Harper, 2024, 372 pages (I read the kindle version). Available in the public library.