The Sentence is another masterpiece by Louise Erdrich. There are so many plot points and themes that I am not sure I detected all of them. The title, The Sentence, has significance on so many levels: not only does it refer to the 60-year sentence that the main character, Tookie, received for transporting a dead body and drugs over state lines, but also to the sentence her people, the Ojibwe, have been living with since Europeans arrived on the land they inhabited. The title also encompasses sentences in books since Tookie became an avid reader while in prison for ten years of her sentence. Throughout the novel, we learn of revered sentences from Tookie’s favorite literary works. There is also a sentence in a book that seemingly killed Flora, a character who dies early in the story and continually haunts Tookie in the bookstore where she worked in Minnesota in 2020. The bookstore is close to George Floyd’s murder site, and this novel addresses life in Minnesota during the pandemic in the aftermath of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter marches. The Native American community sympathizes with BLM since law enforcement officials allegedly kill many Natives.
Flora is a wannabe Native American, and Tookie found her very annoying when she shopped at the bookstore. Aptly, she dies on All Souls Day. Erdrich uses this Christian remembrance to emphasize the veil at the end of October and the beginning of November when days shorten, and the worlds of the living and the dead become similar. This period brings celebrations and customs; Native American and Christian imagery provide a motif for developing the story.
Many characters affect Tookie’s journey through life post-incarceration. Pollux, the tribal police officer, arrested Tookie and then became her husband. He is constant support for Tookie as she struggles with being haunted by Flora and the different decisions in her life, some of which she regrets. Hetta, Pollux’s niece, who is like a daughter to him, joins Tookie and Pollux’s household with Jarvis, her newborn baby. Unbeknownst to all, she would be locked down with them as the 2020 pandemic began. Hetta is an activist, and her political views are particularly interesting because of the story’s geographic location. Other characters such as the baby’s father and Tookie’s colleagues at the bookstore all play pivotal roles in understanding the complexity of Tookie, Native American issues, and the multilayered political issues during the pandemic.
