Bleaker than bleak
I am a huge fan of Louise Erdrich, but I don't think I'll ever be able to read this one again. Shadow Tag is the profoundly disturbing story of a marriage, and by extension, a nuclear family, that crumbles to bits. I got through the story because Erdrich is a master wordsmith and storyteller, but the subject was just so bleak that I was glad when I finished. Erdrich excels at taking the dark and morose and spinning readable stories out it, so I expected sadness, but for me, this tragedy just could not be elevated by her prose. There's a lot to recommend the book in terms of characterization and eloquent language, but I just had a knee-jerk reaction to this book and did not enjoy it as much as many other reviewers did.
