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The Mighty Red

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The Mighty Red

By: Louise Erdrich
Narrated by: Marin Ireland
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About this listen

 'Erdrich remains one of the world's literary giants' Boston Globe

In Argus, North Dakota, a fraught wedding is taking place.

Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe. Gary thinks Kismet is the answer to all of his problems; Kismet can't even imagine her future, let alone the kind of future Gary might offer. During a clumsy proposal, Kismet misses her chance to say 'no' and so the die is cast.

Hugo has been in love with Kismet for years. He has been her friend, confidante and occasionally her lover - and now she is marrying Gary, Hugo is determined to steal her back.

Meanwhile Kismet's mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary's family, and on her nightly truck drives along the highway from the farm to the factories, she tunes in to the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future - both her daughter's and her own.

Starkly beautiful like the landscape it inhabits, The Mighty Red is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets. And as with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendour.

A new novel by Louise Erdrich is a major literary event; gorgeous and heartrending, The Mighty Red is a triumph.©2024 Louise Erdrich (P)2024 Hachette Audio UK Editors Select Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Heartfelt

Editorial Review

Another gem from a master Midwestern storyteller
I fell in love with Louise Erdrich's novels beginning with the beautifully eccentric The Master Butchers Singing Club from 2003, and have enjoyed her prolific output ever since. She's adept at seamlessly weaving together compelling narratives and urgent issues of the day, from wealth disparity to climate change, from the impact of fracking on the Dakotas to the marginalisation of Indigenous communities. Erdrich continues this trend in The Mighty Red, a layered and tender portrait of a North Dakota farming community reeling from the 2008 financial crisis, navigating betrayals and young love, and reckoning with the ghosts of a recent high school tragedy. Rich in character development and beautifully narrated by Marin Ireland, The Mighty Red is another standout addition to Erdrich's oeuvre.— Sarah U., Audible Editor

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If you’ve read the beartown book or anxious people I feel like it’s a mix of the two just a poor man’s version.

Reminds me of Fredrick backman

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Heart breaking because it is so dull and I set such store on Erdrich's writing. This is not profound, the characters are boring, whiney, illogical. There is none of the enthralling spirituality of her other works in this book.
I feel betrayed that such a talent has been wrested away from me to record stupid people doing stupid things.
I have read everything else she has written. Her earlier works were so poetic, the Painted Drum has unsurpassed passages of wisdom and prose that I often refer people to........the cast of her trilogy Tracks, Bingo Palace and Love medicine feel so real to me decades after meeting them............this book, like reading a seed catalogue written by an enthusiastic ecology student.
Somehow, for me the spirituality isn't there, the profound insights, the unbearable glimpses of love and of sorrow have all disappeared. I am not sure that I would read anything new of hers again such is my disappointment.

Heartbreaking

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