The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich

I think family sagas are my favorite literary genre.

I say this because I just finished The Plague of Doves, and wow did I love it. In a few family sagas I've read recently (The Bee Sting is the other example that comes to mind (review to come), I had the impression of reading a very, very slow suspense thriller. You glean little mysteries here and there, and you're ready to accept that you'll never get an answer. But eventually you get another character's point of view, then another, and finally you learn everything.

And bam.

It's powerful, it's exciting, and we dive like voyeurs, or an omniscient god, into the intimacy of the characters. I love it.

Summary

The starting point for all this turmoil is a tragedy: the murder of a family in 19th-century America. The parents and three of their children are killed. But a baby who was sleeping peacefully during the murders survives. And some "Indians" passing by take him in.

Then the second tragedy occurs. These Indians are caught by white men who accuse them of the murders and hang them from a tree, without trial. It's a terrible scene, one that I think will stay with me for a long time.

There are a lot of people involved in this story, and these people have families, and we'll be hearing from all of them. And in doing so, we'll answer all the questions that came to us when we read these first pages.

Impressions

I have to admit that it took me a while to get on board. I hadn't been very impressed with my previous reads, I'd even abandoned a few, and as usual, I had no idea what I was getting myself into with The Plague of Doves. It starts off a bit strangely, with people surveying a field in an attempt to exorcise it, only to be attacked by a swarm of doves. It's a bit absurd, and for a while I wasn't sure where it was going.

But there's nothing like a traumatic scene to get you into a story, is there?

From the moment the Indians were hanged, I was hooked. This book is bizarre, touching; the characters all have their dark and light sides, there's a cult involved, stamp collectors, mental asylums... There's no time to get bored, honestly.

It's for you if, like me, you like to be swept up in a fast-moving story and fascinated by complex human beings.