The Mighty Red

Come visit Tabor, ND, home of beet farms, fracking, and the Red River Valley. Most of the novel’s action occurs during the economic crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, and focuses on Crystal, a descendent of Ojibwe field hands and a hauler for the industrial sugar beet plant, her 18-year-old daughter Kismet, and Crystal’s problematic husband, Martin. Kismet, who once toyed with being a goth, marries Gary, the troubled son of the largest beet grower in the area. She is in love with Hugo, a high school dropout, which further complicates the situation. By focusing on the Red River, which flows northward and floods annually, Erdrich tracks the state’s geological and ethnographic history. Readers learn about beet farming, pesticides, super seeds, loss of wildlife, erosion of the land, oil drilling, the Indigenous community, economic downturns, and the claustrophobic yet comforting life of a tight-knit community. While the novel touches on tragedy, it also includes scenes of sheer comedic delight. No one describes a book-group meeting better than Erdrich.