Musings on The Round House

Plus, an annotated bibliography of sorts

Thoughts on The Round House

By now, I have finished Louse Erdrich’s The Round House. For those of you who’ve finished, I’m curious about how you received the story— what did you think about the narrative choices, such as choosing a teenage boy to tell the story? How would the story have been different told from another character’s POV, or through an omniscient narrator, or a collective of differing POVs? What would have changed?

When I’m reading a book, I think about how the writer intentionally chose this particular way of telling the story. Some readers choose to keep the author at arm’s length when reading, but as a writer myself I am always curious about the writer’s choices. When we write fiction, our choices are truly unlimited— yet some choices work better than other choices.

For instance, I think that Joe’s voice lends the story deep resonance. As readers, we can see that he exhibits the same kind of misogyny that permeated not only the reservation but also the white world surrou…