SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich: https://t.co/jweQGs9Bke
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 16, 2021
Short Review: 5.5 out of 10
1/3
Short Review (cont): An adopted indigenous girl, now pregnant in a world where evolution is regressing, tries to reconnect with her biological parents and find a way forward in a world falling apart. Some interesting ideas of family & culture muddle by a weak dystopian plot
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 16, 2021
2/3
Future Home of the Living God is a 2017 novel by reputed literary author Louise Erdrich, making a turn into dystopian science fiction. The novel doesn't seem to have been as well received as some of Erdrich's other works, although it has drawn comparison to The Handmaid's Tale, as it features a world where pregnant women (and potentially other women of childrearing age) are rounded up and captured. The cause is an unexplainable reversal of evolution, which makes modern society collapse as governments and people try to figure out what to do.
It's a setup that is less interesting than everything else in it, as the book also features an adopted indigenous protagonist trying to connect with her indigenous birth family, deal with her white baby father, and deals heavily with religion and culture along the way too. These ideas are a lot more interesting than the dystopian pregnant prison camps, especially with the first person perspective of its protagonist, a girl who philosophizes science and metaphysics constantly, for better or worse. Unfortunately, it's final arc returns to the less interesting dystopian bits, which makes this hard to really recommend.
-------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------
Cedar Hawk Songmaker grew up the adopted indigenous daughter of a pair of White Minneapolis well-to-do liberals, without much thought to where she came from. In her mid 20s, she became religious to some extent, editing a catholic magazine for her local area. And yet, despite all that, she fell for a white boy who is either an angel or a devil, and got pregnant.
And so now she finds herself trying to connect her Ojibwe heritage, to find her own birth mother - only to find that said mother isn't the native family she imagined, but a woman named Mary Potts, who blends Christianity with Native ideas and loves a depressed man Eddy who works at a superpumper store. It's a connection that Cedar soon finds more interesting than she expected, between her birth mother, Eddy, goth girl sister Mary, and elderly grandma, even if she's not sure how to fit it in with the family that raised her.
But Cedar's chance to explore such connections may be short lived, for the world seems to be collapsing around her, as somehow, evolution is reversing. Animals are devolving into past forms, with babies born being more like humanity's ancestors than other humans. And in a panic, society begins to collapse....with the resulting forces looking to secure the future by grabbing hold of pregnant women like Cedar.
To them, Cedar carries the future in her belly. But Cedar doesn't know who she is in the present, nevertheless what she carries for the future.....
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As I kind of mentioned above the jump: Future Home of the Living God is sort of two different stories. There's the story of Cedar struggling to reconcile who she is and what that means for her and her child - between her white liberal adopted parents, the indigenous birth family she's never known until now, and even Evan her baby's father, who Cedar can't decide her feelings for (or well admit they lean towards love). Then there's also the story of the devolving world, as seen through Cedar's own philosophizing eyes, as she wonders what it all means as she starts in hiding, then winds up captured, and then makes an escape (and then more that I won't spoil). The stories do connect to some extent, but not totally, making this feel at times like two different books.
Unfortunately, one of these stories is far more interesting than the other, which is Cedar trying to figure out where she fits as she learns her birth family isn't quite what she expected from stereotype. This is a very different type of story than the most typical indigenous story* I've read where a character comes to her birth culture and learns about them - to Cedar's surprise, her birth family is in many ways like the people she knows - her mother and grandmother for instance are named Mary Potts (as his her half sister "Little Mary"), rather than being tribal named - like Cedar herself is by her white parents. Mary is some sort of Christian/Catholic just like Cedar is, even if it's a bit oddball focused on the modern Saint Kateri; Eddy, who would have been her stepfather, is a depressive reader who writes a long book about things that make him not want to commit suicide; Little Mary is a druggie goth teen, etc. At the same time, they are invested in their own Ojibwe community, and well, they care for each other and even Cedar as well.
The author, Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, like the characters portrayed here*
And so Cedar's meeting them and contrasting them both before the country falls to shit and afterwards with her birth parents is really interesting, as she tries to figure out where she falls in the scheme of things. Add in her baby daddy Phil, a white boy who is seemingly an Angel....and yet not, leading to disaster...and you have some interesting character work and themes, even before you add in Cedar's catholic faith and her attempt to combine that faith with scientific though to come up with a theory on the future as everything goes to shit.
Unfortunately, a large chunk of the book also tries to make this a dystopian story, with pregnant women hunted down and imprisoned for birthing purposes to try to save humanity as babies begin to be born devolved and dying. The book never really explains how or why this is causing society to collapse so fast, as that's not really the point, with it mentioning through second hand reports how organizations are coming together to form new Christian governments with their own autocratic agendas....except seemingly the same sinister people are involved with the same pregnant woman kidnapping plots twice, and they might as well all be the same dystopian government kidnappers as you'd find in other dystopian books. The first time this happens, there's some bits that are well done and interesting to read as Cedar tries to figure out a way to get through it, and then it happens AGAIN in a way that adds pretty much nothing.
*Where anyone who isn't indigenous or Christian fits in this new world is never discussed or even theorized, which is well...awkward for this Jewish reader, even if it's besides the point of this book.*
And it's this secondary dystopian plot, which feels like a discounted version of what you've read before, that the book finishes with, which is just kind of a disappointment. Like there's very little about this plot - how both women and men are mostly cold (or are warm but secretly snakes) to the pregnant women they're imprisoning and expecting to die, especially women of color, how there are a few allies who can't really do enough to help, etc etc - that you won't have read before, and it doesn't actually add anything when seen through Cedar's philosophizing eyes. It takes what's an interesting idea and just makes it meh, making this one not really work too well.
Oh well.
And so Cedar's meeting them and contrasting them both before the country falls to shit and afterwards with her birth parents is really interesting, as she tries to figure out where she falls in the scheme of things. Add in her baby daddy Phil, a white boy who is seemingly an Angel....and yet not, leading to disaster...and you have some interesting character work and themes, even before you add in Cedar's catholic faith and her attempt to combine that faith with scientific though to come up with a theory on the future as everything goes to shit.
Unfortunately, a large chunk of the book also tries to make this a dystopian story, with pregnant women hunted down and imprisoned for birthing purposes to try to save humanity as babies begin to be born devolved and dying. The book never really explains how or why this is causing society to collapse so fast, as that's not really the point, with it mentioning through second hand reports how organizations are coming together to form new Christian governments with their own autocratic agendas....except seemingly the same sinister people are involved with the same pregnant woman kidnapping plots twice, and they might as well all be the same dystopian government kidnappers as you'd find in other dystopian books. The first time this happens, there's some bits that are well done and interesting to read as Cedar tries to figure out a way to get through it, and then it happens AGAIN in a way that adds pretty much nothing.
*Where anyone who isn't indigenous or Christian fits in this new world is never discussed or even theorized, which is well...awkward for this Jewish reader, even if it's besides the point of this book.*
And it's this secondary dystopian plot, which feels like a discounted version of what you've read before, that the book finishes with, which is just kind of a disappointment. Like there's very little about this plot - how both women and men are mostly cold (or are warm but secretly snakes) to the pregnant women they're imprisoning and expecting to die, especially women of color, how there are a few allies who can't really do enough to help, etc etc - that you won't have read before, and it doesn't actually add anything when seen through Cedar's philosophizing eyes. It takes what's an interesting idea and just makes it meh, making this one not really work too well.
Oh well.
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