The Master Butchers Singing Club

Previous to reading The Master Butchers Singing Club by Minnesota author Louise Erdrich, I had read Love Medicine, Tracks, and The Last Report of the Miracles at Little No Horse.However, it wasn’t until reading The Master Butcher that I understood Erdrich’s style in a way that allowed me to appreciate the weight of her story, as well as the telling. Truth be told, I think Love Medicine and Tracks went way over my head and will have to give them another go around.

The Master Butchers Singing Club is the gripping story of Delphine Watzka, a rural North Dakota townie and Fidelis Waldvogel, a German immigrant. Following World War I, Fidelis immigrates to the US in the hopes of getting to Seattle, though he only gets as far as Argus, North Dakota. He settles there, opening a butcher shop and raising his four sons with his wife, Eva, who is absolutely a brilliant force in the book. Weaving stories of murder, a threatening sheriff, the delightful Waldvogel family, and Delphine’s relationships with the endearing Cyprian and lovely Roy, Erdrich brings us a truly bittersweet story of human relationships.

So much happens in the book that each chapter is thrilling to read even on its own. The challenge to the reader may be keeping a pulse on Delphine and Fidelis’ relationship throughout the story. We travel with Delphine through her desire for the very sexy Cyprian, the resulting disillusionment and nontraditional relationship, her affection for Eva and loyalty to Eva’s sons, and the polar strength that both she and Fidelis summon to stay apart. We endure the insufferable Tante, the delightful Clarisse, the brooding Sheriff Hoch, and Delphine’s very drunk, very loveable and pitiable father, Roy. Each character and story line is drawn with such depth and cautious detail that the tale could go in any direction and I admire Erdrich for being able to stick with the story she’s chosen. It is clear that the story of the master butcher of Argus is just one of many that could come out of this fictional town.

Erdrich has previously written about the Anishinabeg communities in North Dakota and Minnesota and one theme of The Master Butchers Singing Club is the interaction of the native peoples of the plains with the white settlers. Specifically, Erdrich weaves in the Battle at Wounded Knee in an out-of-the-blue though not irrelevant way. The character of Step-and-a-Half absolutely fascinates and, though a very peripheral character, she had almost exactly the role I was expecting. "Almost" is the key word here; I would have been disappointed if I had been able to guess it.

Above all, Erdrich’s writing style makes this book so wonderful to read. Whether she is telling a tragedy or describing something amusing, she makes it count. She writes sentences like: “The light pouring through the curtains made a liquid sound, he thought, an emotional and female sound as it moved across the ivory wall.” I had to read that a couple times to really understand the air and sound behind an observation like that, but once I was there in the room I thought yes, I know that kind of light. The thought from the book that stuck with me most when I had finished was observed by Step-and-a-Half as she closed the story: “Our songs travel the earth…Not a single note is ever lost and no song is original. They all come from the same place and go back to a time when only the stones howled.” What imagery! What grace! What connection to the ancestors!

**If you decide this isn’t enough to make you want to read the book, go see the show at the Guthrie Theatre. It is showing until November 6th and is absolutely outstanding.