The Sentence

The Sentence

• Genre: Fiction; mystery
• Originally Published: 2021
• Reading Level/Interest: College/adult
• Structure/Length: 18 chapters; approximately 416 pages; approximately 11 hours, 49 minutes on audio
• Protagonist/Central Conflict: In The Sentence, Louise Erdrich explores a haunting tale set in a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis. Flora, the store’s most annoying customer, dies on All Souls’ Day in 2019 but refuses to leave the store. Tookie, a woman who has found solace in books after a period of incarceration, must unravel the mystery of this haunting while also navigating a year of reckoning.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Hauntings; racism against Black and Indigenous Americans; inappropriate handling of corpses; illicit drug use; isolation; pandemic challenges

Louise Erdrich, Author

• Bio: Born June 7, 1954, in Little Falls, Minnesota; German American and Ojibwe heritage; grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota; graduated from Dartmouth College (BA, 1976) and Johns Hopkins University (MA, 1979); collaborated with writer and anthropologist Michael Dorris; has authored several best-selling novels; recipient of Pulitzer Prize for The Night Watchman (2020); owner of Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore in Minneapolis; advocate for social justice causes
• Other Works: Love Medicine (1984); The Plague of Doves (2008); The Round House (2012)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Guide:

• The Unpredictability of Life
• The Resilience and Importance of Indigenous American Identity
• The Power of Love as Redemption

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Teaching Guide, students will:

• Gain an understanding of the literary context regarding the Indigenous American writers and novels that Tookie references throughout The Sentence.
• Read paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes of The Resilience and Importance of Indigenous American Identity and The Unpredictability of Life.
• Identify strategies for celebrating the work of Indigenous American writers based on lessons learned from reading The Sentence.
• Analyze plot and character details to draw conclusions in structured essay responses regarding the contemporary setting of the novel, the relationship between the past and present, and the importance of community.