The Round House: National Book Award Winning Fiction

Winner of the National Book Award - Washington Post Best Book of the Year - A New York Times Notable Book

From one of the most revered novelists of our time, an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family.

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface because Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece--at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.

Author: Louise Erdrich
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 09/24/2013
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 8.02h x 5.33w x 0.88d
ISBN: 9780062065254

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.1
Point Value: 17
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 156731 / Round House


Award: Nutmeg Book Award - Nominee


Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 10/20/2013 pg. 28

About the Author
Erdrich, Louise: -

Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the author of many novels as well as volumes of poetry, children's books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her novel The Round House won the National Book Award for Fiction. Love Medicine and LaRose received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore. Her most recent book, The Night Watchman, won the Pulitzer Prize. A ghost lives in her creaky old house.