The Master Butchers Singing Club
By Louise Erdrich
(Harper Perennial, Paperback, 9780060837051, 416pp.)
Publication Date: July 2005
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Audio Cassette, Paperback, Paperback, Hardcover
Categories: Historical - General
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Having survived World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend, killed in action. With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher's precious knife set, Fidelis sets out for America. In Argus, North Dakota, he builds a business, a home for his family—which includes Eva and four sons—and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town. When the Old World meets the New—in the person of Delphine Watzka—the great adventure of Fidelis's life begins. Delphine meets Eva and is enchanted. She meets Fidelis, and the ground trembles. These momentous encounters will determine the course of Delphine's life, and the trajectory of this brilliant novel.
Louise Erdrich is the author of thirteen novels, several volumes of poetry, short stories, children's books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her novel Love Medicine won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Plague of Doves was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in Minnesota and is the owner of Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore.
“Louise Erdrich’s rousing and radiant new novel THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB is all kinds of lovely.”
-Newsweek
“A brilliantly layered look at war’s costs …Daring, graceful, comprehending and, rooted in the great plains, uniquely American.”
-Kansas City Star
“THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB can surely be cast as the most wrenching and wise of Erdrich’s nine novels.”
-Miami Herald
“Lush and stark … employing vivid imagery, deft description and dialogue that flows … Stunning language.”
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Grand and generous fiction… Erdrich’s most sweeping and ambitious yet.”
-BookPage
“A substantial, beautifully composed, confident work of art … both expansive in its reach and intimate in its intense focus.”
-O magazine
“Satisfying and life-affirming.”
-Atlantic Monthly
“[A] magnificent tale … poignant in the mysteries it evokes and patient with the questions is leaves unanswered.”
-Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Each moment and its particulars dazzles … Fidelis and firm-bellied Delphine and the rest [of the characters] are masterworks.”
-San Francisco Chronicle
“Delphine, the book’s central figure, is Erdrich’s most finely wrought and compelling character.”
-Denver Rocky Mountain News
“Miraculous …[Erdrich is] at the peak of powers as a writer … Her work is as melodious as ever.”
-Boston Globe
“Not since Ricard Russo’s 2001 novel EMPIRE FALLS ... have I enjoyed the company of such memorable characters.”
-Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today
“Erdrich is an abundantly gifted storyteller, with a penchant for meticulous detail and tremendous empathy for her characters.”
-Charlotte Observer
“Appropriately grim and thoughtful, THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB is also full of tenderness and life … Marvelous.”
-Entertainment Weekly
“Emotionally resonant.”
-Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
“[THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB] is marked by moments of true creative genius, exquisitely imagined and masterfully drawn.”
-Richmond Times-Dispatch
“The Master Butchers Singing Club reveals on of our finest writers at the peak of her considerable powers.”
-Minneapolis Star Tribune
“An enrapturing plunge into the depths of the human heart.”
-Washington Post Book World
“A thoughtful, artful, painfully moving addition to an ongoing American saga .. unimaginably rich.”
-Kirkus Reviews
“Rich and vibrant …Magnificent.”
-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Louise Erdrich hits every note in THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB”
-Vanity Fair
“[A] masterpiece… Erdrich never hits a false note.”
-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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