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  • Future Home of the Living God

  • A Novel
  • Written by: Louise Erdrich
  • Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
  • Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (23 ratings)

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Future Home of the Living God

Written by: Louise Erdrich
Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
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Publisher's Summary

Louise Erdrich, the New York Times best-selling, National Book Award-winning author of LaRose and The Round House, paints a startling portrait of a young woman fighting for her life and her unborn child against oppressive forces that manifest in the wake of a cataclysmic event.

The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backward, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans. Thirty-two-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.

Though she wants to tell the adoptive parents who raised her from infancy, Cedar first feels compelled to find her birth mother, Mary Potts, an Ojibwe living on the reservation, to understand both her and her baby's origins. As Cedar goes back to her own biological beginnings, society around her begins to disintegrate, fueled by a swelling panic about the end of humanity.

There are rumors of martial law, of Congress confining pregnant women. Of a registry, and rewards for those who turn these wanted women in. Flickering through the chaos are signs of increasing repression: a shaken Cedar witnesses a family wrenched apart when police violently drag a mother from her husband and child in a parking lot. The streets of her neighborhood have been renamed with Bible verses. A stranger answers the phone when she calls her adoptive parents, who have vanished without a trace. It will take all Cedar has to avoid the prying eyes of potential informants and keep her baby safe.

A chilling dystopian novel both provocative and prescient, Future Home of the Living God is a startlingly original work from one of our most acclaimed writers: a moving meditation on female agency, self-determination, biology, and natural rights that speaks to the troubling changes of our time.

©2017 Louise Erdrich (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

What the critics say

"Louise Erdrich narrates her novel in a quiet voice that belies its power to convey her devastating and heart-wrenching story.... Erdrich's intimate narration seems as though one is hearing Cedar recount her story herself.... Erdrich devastates with her story as she projects Cedar's strength, convictions, and pain as she fights for control over her body and the destiny of her unborn child." (AudioFile)

What listeners say about Future Home of the Living God

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting premise; too ethereal for my taste.

I loved the premise of this book but wasn’t quite satisfied with the author’s style of storytelling. In theory it’s a unique concept. But as with other Louise Erdrich novels I’ve listened to, the narrative is always so dreamlike and meandering that I don’t feel like I’m ever getting a concrete understanding of what’s going on in the timeline. So much metaphor and implied understanding and introspection of the protagonist.

This audiobook is read by the author, and she does have a very soothing voice so I didn’t mind listening. But would often have to skip back to figure out what the heck was going on.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Really interesting concept

Towards the end I just didn’t really know what was happening…. And just seemed unfinished.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
  • EW
  • 2019-05-04

Interesting characters in a dystopic but relatable

Glad I listened to this one but at times it was slow and repetitive. Nice to have author reading.

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