Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich [in Library Journal]
Twenty-six-year-old, four-months-pregnant Cedar Hawk Songmaker was adopted by Minneapolis liberals but has recently reconnected with her extended Ojibwe birth family. Reunion notwithstanding, the world is in dystopic collapse – evolution is in rapid reverse, the Church of the New Constitution has usurped control, the human race is imploding – and Cedar’s determined to record the tumult for her unborn child. Her fertile womb makes her a target, as pregnant women are hunted and imprisoned; protecting her baby becomes a desperate race against time.
Begun in 2001 (according to the acknowledgments) and completed in spring 2017 (revealed in the introduction), the interrupted incubation might explain the unfinished characterizations and disjointed story lines; only Louise Erdrich’s richly nuanced reading improves the uneven narrative.
Verdict: The rediscovered popularity of womb dystopia will surely fuel interest in Erdrich’s Future; libraries should be prepared to provide multi-format access to the author’s substantial audiences.
Review: “Audio,” Library Journal, February 15, 2018
Published: 2017
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