Irene America is struggling in life. She is trying to complete her doctorate thesis about the painter George Catlin, while raising her family of three children, and dealing with her demanding, jealous, and possessive husband, Gil. Gil is somewhat famous for his increasingly raw and brutal portraits of Irene, and while he realizes that his wife doesn’t love him anymore, he cannot let her and their family go. Both Irene and Gil are alcoholics and their children are caught in the middle of constant fighting, hitting, and other abuses. When Irene realizes that Gil is reading her diary, she starts a new, hidden diary that she keeps locked in a bank deposit box where she writes her true feelings about her life and dissolving marriage, and manipulates her other diary writings to manipulate Gil into leaving her and their children.
While bleak and heartbreaking, Erdrich’s newest novel is also a gripping, emotional tale of a family gone wrong. Native American beliefs and culture are present throughout the short novel, as customary in most of Erdrich’s novels. Most readers probably will realize that someone is not going to make it out of the marriage alive, but the end is still shocking when readers finally get to that point. A tale of love, control, frustration, and survival make this a mesmerizing read.
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