Spend February reading Louise Erdrich’s pandemic novel of grief and ghosts

The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers.

We’re now far enough into the pandemic that the first wave of pandemic novels have come out, and if we’re being completely honest, most of them are bad. They’re too boring, or too simple, or too cruel, or they go on about sourdough too much, or they cheerfully announce that the whole thing ended in May 2021 and by now everything is back to normal. No thank you!

The only good pandemic novel I have come across so far is The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, who won the Pulitzer in 2021. That’s why The Sentence is also the Vox Book Club’s pick for February.

The Sentence tells the story of an Indigenous woman named Tookie who works at an independent bookstore in Minneapolis specializing in books by Indigenous writers. Tookie is happy to keep working at the store when lockdown comes, since it keeps her busy. But she’s a little disconcerted to realize that the store seems to be haunted — specifically, that it seems to be haunted by an old customer.

There’s a lot here about death and grief and ghosts, about America’s sins of past and present, about why books matter and how they can help us all grieve together as we make our way through this time. I look forward to talking through it all together with you.

Join the Vox Book Club as we spend February exploring the world of The Sentence. Then, at the end of the month, we’ll be meeting Erdrich live on Zoom, and you can RSVP here. In the meantime, subscribe to the Vox Book Club newsletter to make sure you don’t miss anything.

The full Vox Book Club schedule for February 2022

Friday, February 11: Discussion post on The Sentence published to Vox.com

Thursday, February 24, 5 pm ET: Virtual live event with author Louise Erdrich. Reader questions are encouraged!

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via