Future Home of the Living God

by Louise Erdrich

Overview

A New York Times Notable Book

Louise Erdrich, the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of LaRose and The Round House, paints a startling portrait of a young woman fighting for her life and her unborn child against oppressive forces that manifest in the wake of a cataclysmic event.

The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backwards, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans. Twenty-six-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.

Though she wants to tell the adoptive parents who raised her from infancy, Cedar first feels compelled to find her birth mother, Mary Potts, an Ojibwe living on the reservation, to understand both her and her baby’s origins. As Cedar goes back to her own biological beginnings, society around her begins to disintegrate, fueled by a swelling panic about the end of humanity.

There are rumors of martial law, of Congress confining pregnant women. Of a registry, and rewards for those who turn these wanted women in. Flickering through the chaos are signs of increasing repression: a shaken Cedar witnesses a family wrenched apart when police violently drag a mother from her husband and child in a parking lot. The streets of her neighborhood have been renamed with Bible verses. A stranger answers the phone when she calls her adoptive parents, who have vanished without a trace. It will take all Cedar has to avoid the prying eyes of potential informants and keep her baby safe.

A chilling dystopian novel both provocative and prescient, Future Home of the Living God is a startlingly original work from one of our most acclaimed writers: a moving meditation on female agency, self-determination, biology, and natural rights that speaks to the troubling changes of our time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062694058
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	11/14/2017
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

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.

Hometown:

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Date of Birth:

June 7, 1954

Place of Birth:

Little Falls, Minnesota

Education:

B.A., Dartmouth College, 1976; M.A., Johns Hopkins University, 1979

Editorial Reviews

…fascinating…Written in the form of a letter to Cedar's unborn child, the novel is an eerie amalgam of pregnancy journal and persecution chronicle…The urgency of this novel's subject matter goes a long way to compensate for its flaws.

The New York Times Book Review - Ruth Franklin

09/25/2017
Set in Minnesota in a dystopian future in which evolution is going haywire, much of this startling new work of speculative fiction by Erdrich (LaRose) takes the form of a diary by pregnant Cedar Hawk Songmaker addressed to her unborn child. Happily raised and well-educated by her adopted parents Sera and Glen Songmaker, Cedar decides nevertheless to visit her Ojibwe birth family on the rez up north. But times are strange: “our world is running backward. Or forward. Or maybe sideways.” Flora and fauna are taking on prehistoric characteristics, and there is talk of viruses. It isn’t long before pregnant women are being rounded up. Cedar meets up again with her baby’s father, Phil, and for a while she hides with him. But eventually she is caught by the authorities, who reveal nothing about what is happening. A hospital incarceration, escape, violence, and murder ensue as Cedar and other pregnant women she meets along the way—helped by the valiant Sera, Cedar’s adoptive mother—will do anything to protect themselves and their babies. Erdrich’s characters are brave and conscientious, but none of them really come across as people; they act mostly as vehicles for Erdrich’s ideas. Those ideas, however—reproductive freedom, for one, and faith in and respect for the natural world—are strikingly relevant. Erdrich has written a cautionary tale for this very moment in time. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

“Erdrich’s inclusiveness, her expansive vision of humanity surprises and pleases on every page…Erdrich’s virtuosity reminds me of an eagle in flight…Her wisdom blossoms from multicultural sources and is always inviting the reader in, in, to deeper understanding and identity.” — Hudson Review

“A streamlined dystopian thriller…Erdrich’s tense and lyrical new work of speculative fiction stands shoulder-to-braced-shoulder right alongside The Handmaid’s Tale.” — Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air

“Erdrich stuns again in Future Home of The Living God…She grounds her story in a kind of sharply drawn reality that makes the standard tropes of dark futurism that much more unnerving…Erdrich is a writer whose words carry a spiritual weight far beyond science, or fiction.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Erdrich is a seer, a visionary whose politics are inextricable from her fiction…[Future Home of the Living God] is an eerie masterpiece, a novel so prescient that though it conjures an alternate reality, it often provokes the feeling that, yes this is really happening.”  — O, The Oprah Magazine

“In this fast-paced novel, rapid and catastrophic changes to human reproduction make the survival of the race uncertain…Erdrich imagines an America in which winter is a casualty of climate change, borders are sealed, men are ‘militantly insecure,’ and women’s freedom is evaporating…Vivid…Compelling.” — New Yorker

“Smart and thrilling…the book reads like an alternate history of our anxious current moment…Erdrich’s storytelling is seductive.” — Vanity Fair

“A fascinating new novel, which describes a world where evolution is running backward and the future of civilization is in doubt.” — New York Times Book Review

“Philosophical yet propulsive…Future Home of the Living God is as much a thriller as it is a religious-themed literary novel — it thrives on narrow escapes, surprise character appearances, and a perpetual sense of peril…effective and cannily imagined.” — USA Today

“We recognize…the same miasma of anxiety and unease that Americans now breathe. This is fiction, of course; the details are not from our world. But the sensation is…Vivid and suspenseful…Once Cedar is imprisoned, the story turns thrilling.” — Boston Globe

“Masterful…a breakout work of speculative fiction…Erdrich enters the realm of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale…A tornadic, suspenseful, profoundly provoking novel of life’s vulnerability and insistence…with a bold apocalyptic theme, searing social critique, and high-adrenaline action.” — Booklist, Starred Review

“[A] startling new work of speculative fiction…strikingly relevant. Erdrich has written a cautionary tale for this very moment in time.” — Publishers Weekly, boxed review

“A dazzling work of dystopian fiction a la Handmaid’s Tale.” — Real Simple

“Propulsive, wry, and keenly observant…this chilling speculative fiction is perfect for readers seeking the next Handmaid’s Tale.” — Library Journal

“An original (and utterly terrifying) creation…Haunting…smart but not pretentious. It is funny, thrilling, and heartbreaking, all without missing a beat – an impressive achievement.” — BookBrowse, Starred Review

“[Erdrich] once again proves her talent for narrating a profound and compelling story.” — Ms. Magazine

From the Publisher

We recognize…the same miasma of anxiety and unease that Americans now breathe. This is fiction, of course; the details are not from our world. But the sensation is…Vivid and suspenseful…Once Cedar is imprisoned, the story turns thrilling.

Boston Globe

Erdrich’s inclusiveness, her expansive vision of humanity surprises and pleases on every page…Erdrich’s virtuosity reminds me of an eagle in flight…Her wisdom blossoms from multicultural sources and is always inviting the reader in, in, to deeper understanding and identity.

Hudson Review

Masterful…a breakout work of speculative fiction…Erdrich enters the realm of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale…A tornadic, suspenseful, profoundly provoking novel of life’s vulnerability and insistence…with a bold apocalyptic theme, searing social critique, and high-adrenaline action.

Starred Review Booklist

[Erdrich] once again proves her talent for narrating a profound and compelling story.

Ms. Magazine

A dazzling work of dystopian fiction a la Handmaid’s Tale.

Real Simple

Smart and thrilling…the book reads like an alternate history of our anxious current moment…Erdrich’s storytelling is seductive.

Vanity Fair

Erdrich is a seer, a visionary whose politics are inextricable from her fiction…[Future Home of the Living God] is an eerie masterpiece, a novel so prescient that though it conjures an alternate reality, it often provokes the feeling that, yes this is really happening.” 

The Oprah Magazine O

06/01/2017
With evolution seemingly running in reverse (women are giving birth to an apparently primitive species), Cedar Hawk Songmaker is desperate to find her Ojibwe birth mother before telling her adoptive parents that she is pregnant. Soon she's on the run from a registry of expectant mothers. The inimitable Erdrich catches the dystopian zeitgeist; with a 300,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

In this fast-paced novel, rapid and catastrophic changes to human reproduction make the survival of the race uncertain…Erdrich imagines an America in which winter is a casualty of climate change, borders are sealed, men are ‘militantly insecure,’ and women’s freedom is evaporating…Vivid…Compelling.

New Yorker

Erdrich stuns again in Future Home of The Living God…She grounds her story in a kind of sharply drawn reality that makes the standard tropes of dark futurism that much more unnerving…Erdrich is a writer whose words carry a spiritual weight far beyond science, or fiction.

Entertainment Weekly

Smart and thrilling…the book reads like an alternate history of our anxious current moment…Erdrich’s storytelling is seductive.

Vanity Fair

Philosophical yet propulsive…Future Home of the Living God is as much a thriller as it is a religious-themed literary novel — it thrives on narrow escapes, surprise character appearances, and a perpetual sense of peril…effective and cannily imagined.

USA Today

A streamlined dystopian thriller…Erdrich’s tense and lyrical new work of speculative fiction stands shoulder-to-braced-shoulder right alongside The Handmaid’s Tale.

Maureen Corrigan

Erdrich is a seer, a visionary whose politics are inextricable from her fiction…[Future Home of the Living God] is an eerie masterpiece, a novel so prescient that though it conjures an alternate reality, it often provokes the feeling that, yes this is really happening.” 

The Oprah Magazine O

A fascinating new novel, which describes a world where evolution is running backward and the future of civilization is in doubt.

New York Times Book Review

In this fast-paced novel, rapid and catastrophic changes to human reproduction make the survival of the race uncertain…Erdrich imagines an America in which winter is a casualty of climate change, borders are sealed, men are ‘militantly insecure,’ and women’s freedom is evaporating…Vivid…Compelling.

New Yorker

Philosophical yet propulsive…Future Home of the Living God is as much a thriller as it is a religious-themed literary novel — it thrives on narrow escapes, surprise character appearances, and a perpetual sense of peril…effective and cannily imagined.

USA Today

An original (and utterly terrifying) creation…Haunting…smart but not pretentious. It is funny, thrilling, and heartbreaking, all without missing a beat – an impressive achievement.

Starred Review BookBrowse

A dazzling work of dystopian fiction a la Handmaid’s Tale.

Real Simple

We recognize…the same miasma of anxiety and unease that Americans now breathe. This is fiction, of course; the details are not from our world. But the sensation is…Vivid and suspenseful…Once Cedar is imprisoned, the story turns thrilling.

Boston Globe

Philosophical yet propulsive…Future Home of the Living God is as much a thriller as it is a religious-themed literary novel — it thrives on narrow escapes, surprise character appearances, and a perpetual sense of peril…effective and cannily imagined.

USA Today

Erdrich’s inclusiveness, her expansive vision of humanity surprises and pleases on every page…Erdrich’s virtuosity reminds me of an eagle in flight…Her wisdom blossoms from multicultural sources and is always inviting the reader in, in, to deeper understanding and identity.

Hudson Review

[Erdrich] once again proves her talent for narrating a profound and compelling story.

Ms. Magazine

In this fast-paced novel, rapid and catastrophic changes to human reproduction make the survival of the race uncertain…Erdrich imagines an America in which winter is a casualty of climate change, borders are sealed, men are ‘militantly insecure,’ and women’s freedom is evaporating…Vivid…Compelling.

New Yorker

Masterful…a breakout work of speculative fiction…Erdrich enters the realm of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale…A tornadic, suspenseful, profoundly provoking novel of life’s vulnerability and insistence…with a bold apocalyptic theme, searing social critique, and high-adrenaline action.

Starred Review Booklist

Erdrich stuns again in Future Home of The Living God…She grounds her story in a kind of sharply drawn reality that makes the standard tropes of dark futurism that much more unnerving…Erdrich is a writer whose words carry a spiritual weight far beyond science, or fiction.

Entertainment Weekly

A fascinating new novel, which describes a world where evolution is running backward and the future of civilization is in doubt.

New York Times Book Review

A page-turner…with lucid language and gripping scenes…Among the book’s many strengths are its urgency and suspense as well as the immediacy of its voice…Erdrich’s sense of humor manages to make the darkness fresh and plausible…She applies her stinging perspective to remind readers how much has happened, how much keeps happening and how far humans have yet to go.

Chicago Tribune

In this fast-paced novel, rapid and catastrophic changes to human reproduction make the survival of the race uncertain…Erdrich imagines an America in which winter is a casualty of climate change, borders are sealed, men are ‘militantly insecure,’ and women’s freedom is evaporating…Vivid…Compelling.

The New Yorker