Pulitzer Prize-winning Minneapolis author Louise Erdrich announces new book

Word has circulated in the publishing world for more than a year that Louise Erdrich was working on a new novel, to be released this fall, but details have been scarce.

Until now.

Birchbark Books, the Minneapolis writer’s store, announced Tuesday that it has begun taking pre-orders for her latest, which is called “The Mighty Red” and will be published Oct. 1. The title refers to the Red River, which helps define the lives of a large cast of characters, including Kismet Poe, a “lapsed Goth,” who is loved by two men: a farmer named Gary Geist and “gentle giant” Hugo, whose red hair could also be the titular reference.

Set in a town called Argus, N.D., in 2008 and 2009, “The Mighty Red” finds its characters grappling with personal and global tragedies but, according to publisher HarperCollins, it’s a novel of “tender humor, disturbance and hallucinatory mourning.”

Erdrich’s first work since “The Sentence,” which was set in a store similar to Birchbark and which dealt with the early months of the COVID pandemic, “The Mighty Red” will be one of autumn’s most eagerly anticipated novels.

Erdrich’s other books include the Minneapolis-set “The Night Watchman,” which earned a Pulitzer, as well as “The Round House,” which earned the National Book Award, and “Love Medicine.” Erdrich is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and a native of Little Falls, Minn.