About the Book

Having survived World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries Eva, the pregnant fiancée of his best friend, killed in action. With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher’s precious knife set, Fidelis sets out for America. In Argus, North Dakota, he builds a business, a home for his family—which includes Eva and four sons—and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town. When the Old World meets the New—in the person of Delphine Watzka—the great adventure of Fidelis’s life begins. Delphine meets Eva and is enchanted. She meets Fidelis, and the ground trembles. These momentous encounters will determine the course of Delphine’s life, and the trajectory of this brilliant novel.

The Master Butchers Singing Club spans the decades from World War I through World War II and beyond to 1954. The novel unfolds its themes of love and death, lightness and gravity, with the eloquent prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling that only a master writer can offer. Creating a fictional world filled with memorable characters that grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature is an impressive achievement, but doing so with the compassion and intelligence, lyrical style and wit, of Louise Erdrich is a gift to readers everywhere.

Critical Praise

“A substantial, beautifully composed, confident work of art … both expansive in its reach and intimate in its intense focus.” — O magazine

“An enrapturing plunge into the depths of the human heart.” — Washington Post Book World

“[A] magnificent tale...poignant in the mysteries it evokes and patient with the questions it leaves unanswered.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Miraculous …[Erdrich is] at the peak of powers as a writer … Her work is as melodious as ever.” — Boston Globe

“Emotionally resonant.” — Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

“[A] masterpiece… Erdrich never hits a false note.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Louise Erdrich’s rousing and radiant new novel THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB is all kinds of lovely.” — Newsweek

“Each moment and its particulars dazzles … Fidelis and firm-bellied Delphine and the rest [of the characters] are masterworks.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB can surely be cast as the most wrenching and wise of Erdrich’s nine novels.” — Miami Herald

“A brilliantly layered look at war’s costs …Daring, graceful, comprehending and, rooted in the great plains, uniquely American.” — Kansas City Star

“The Master Butchers Singing Club reveals on of our finest writers at the peak of her considerable powers.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Rich and vibrant …Magnificent.” — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Lush and stark … employing vivid imagery, deft description and dialogue that flows … Stunning language.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Not since Ricard Russo’s 2001 novel EMPIRE FALLS ... have I enjoyed the company of such memorable characters.” — Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today

“Louise Erdrich hits every note in THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB” — Vanity Fair

“Satisfying and life-affirming.” — Atlantic Monthly

“[THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB] is marked by moments of true creative genius, exquisitely imagined and masterfully drawn.” — Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Erdrich is an abundantly gifted storyteller, with a penchant for meticulous detail and tremendous empathy for her characters.” — Charlotte Observer

“Appropriately grim and thoughtful, THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB is also full of tenderness and life … Marvelous.” — Entertainment Weekly

“A thoughtful, artful, painfully moving addition to an ongoing American saga .. unimaginably rich.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Delphine, the book’s central figure, is Erdrich’s most finely wrought and compelling character.” — Denver Rocky Mountain News

“Grand and generous fiction… Erdrich’s most sweeping and ambitious yet.” — BookPage

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Product Details

• ISBN: 9780060837051
• ISBN 10: 0060837055
• Imprint: Harper Perennial
• On Sale: 08/23/2016
• Trimsize: 5.310 in (w) x 8.000 in (h) x 0.940 in (d)
• Pages: 416
• List Price: $17.99
• BISAC1 : FICTION / Historical
• BISAC2 : FICTION / Literary
• BISAC3 : FICTION / Native American & Aboriginal