Having survived World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend, killed in action. With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher's precious knife set, Fidelis sets out for America. In Argus, North Dakota, he builds a business, a home for his family which includes Eva and four sons and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town. When the Old World meets the New in the person of Delphine Watzka the great adventure of Fidelis's life begins.
Delphine meets Eva and is enchanted. She meets Fidelis, and the ground trembles. These momentous encounters will determine the course of Delphine's life, and the trajectory of this brilliant novel.
About the Author
Louise Erdrich is the author of fifteen novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, short stories, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her novel The Round House won the National Book Award for Fiction. The Plague of Doves won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and her debut novel, Love Medicine , was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Erdrich has received the Library of Congress Prize in American Fiction, the prestigious PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
She lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.
Industry Reviews
"A brilliantly layered look at war's costs ...Daring, graceful, comprehending and, rooted in the great plains, uniquely American."--Kansas City Star "A substantial, beautifully composed, confident work of art ... both expansive in its reach and intimate in its intense focus."--O magazine "Rich and vibrant ...Magnificent."--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "An enrapturing plunge into the depths of the human heart."--Washington Post Book World "Grand and generous fiction... Erdrich's most sweeping and ambitious yet."--BookPage "Erdrich is an abundantly gifted storyteller, with a penchant for meticulous detail and tremendous empathy for her characters."--Charlotte Observer "[THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB] is marked by moments of true creative genius, exquisitely imagined and masterfully drawn."--Richmond Times-Dispatch "Delphine, the book's central figure, is Erdrich's most finely wrought and compelling character."--Denver Rocky Mountain News "Louise Erdrich hits every note in THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB"--Vanity Fair "THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB can surely be cast as the most wrenching and wise of Erdrich's nine novels."--Miami Herald "Appropriately grim and thoughtful, THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB is also full of tenderness and life ... Marvelous."--Entertainment Weekly "A thoughtful, artful, painfully moving addition to an ongoing American saga .. unimaginably rich."--Kirkus Reviews "Each moment and its particulars dazzles ... Fidelis and firm-bellied Delphine and the rest [of the characters] are masterworks."--San Francisco Chronicle "The Master Butchers Singing Club reveals on of our finest writers at the peak of her considerable powers."--Minneapolis Star Tribune "Miraculous ...[Erdrich is] at the peak of powers as a writer ... Her work is as melodious as ever."--Boston Globe "Emotionally resonant."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times "Satisfying and life-affirming."--Atlantic Monthly "Not since Ricard Russo's 2001 novel EMPIRE FALLS ... have I enjoyed the company of such memorable characters."--Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today "[A] masterpiece... Erdrich never hits a false note."--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Lush and stark ... employing vivid imagery, deft description and dialogue that flows ... Stunning language."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Louise Erdrich's rousing and radiant new novel THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB is all kinds of lovely."--Newsweek "[A] magnificent tale...poignant in the mysteries it evokes and patient with the questions it leaves unanswered."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
