The Round House

Set on the Ojibwe Indian reservation in North Dakota, Louise Erdrich’s The Round House (HarperCollins, $27.99) is the story of a young son’s search for justice after the brutal beating of his mother. Like all of Erdrich’s novels, this vivid fiction immerses readers in the inter-connected family relationships of the reservation, a world animated by enduring cultural traditions. Erdrich is particularly insightful about Native Americans’ day-to-day existence and shows the uneasy balance characters must continually negotiate between tribal law and politics and the outside world.