The Sentence

A student once asked me, "Is there any happy literature?" It took me a moment to answer, and later I revised my schedule of readings. Seriousness is not required for literature but is often concealed in humor. I offer as proof Louise Erdrich's THE SENTENCE.

I have never read a funnier first chapter, and yet it contains death, drugs, and a prison sentence. The novel is not without conflict, but the narrator Tookie meets it head on. (Okay, she buries some of it.) Tookie is grounded in the physical world--weather, nature, food--yet well aware of the supernatural. She is an essential worker like no other.

Try not to race through this book, but if you do, it's worth a reread.