Shadow Tag: A Novel
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- ISBN13: 9780061536090
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
“Here is the most telling fact: you wish to possess me.
Here is another fact: I loved you and let you reflect you could.”
When Irene America discovers that her spouse, Gil, has been reading her diary, she starts a secret Blue Pad, stashed securely in a safe-deposit box. There she records the truth about her life and her marriage, while turning her Red Diary—hidden where Gil will find it—into a manipulative farce. Alternating between these two records, complemented by unflinching third-person narration, Shadow Tag is an eerily gripping read.
When the novel opens, Irene is resuming work on her doctoral thesis about George Catlin, the nineteenth-century painter whose Native American subjects regularly regarded his portraits with suspicious marvel. Gil, who gained notoriety as an artist through his emotionally revealing portraits of his wife—work that is adoring, sensual, and humiliating, even shocking—realizes that his dread of losing Irene may force him to make the defining work of his career.
Meanwhile, Irene and Gil fight to keep up appearances for their three children: fourteen-year-ancient genius Florian, who escapes his family tree’s unraveling with joints and a stolen bottle of wine; Riel, their only daughter, an eleven-year-ancient feverishly preparation to preserve her family tree, no matter what disaster strikes; and sweet kindergartener Stoney, who was born, his parents come to realize, at the beginning of the end.
As her home increasingly becomes a place of violence and secrets, and she drifts into alcoholism, Irene moves to end her marriage. But her attachment to Gil is filled with dark need and tasty ironies. In brilliantly controlled prose, Shadow Tag fearlessly explores the complex scenery of like, the fluid boundaries of identity, and one family tree’s struggle for survival and redemption.
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I’m giving this book a 1 rating because it’s infuriating that it is not available on Kindle. I will not be buying this book in either hard take in or kindle when it finally comes out. I can’t judge publishers, in this case HarperCollins, are so greedy they don’t admit that sheer volume in sales will more than make up the fee difference between hardcopy and kindle. Some of us travel and would appreciate the latest and greatest being available so we don’t have to lug books around. I’m really disappointed in HarperCollins and I hope they come to their senses. HarperCollins also fails to admit they are cutting off their nose: persons of us who read books on kindle and like the book, regularly buy the hardcopy for our stable libraries. Bring shame on on you greedy selfish elitists.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I despise to say this about any book I read, but I truly did not like this one. I could find nothing redeemable in it. I thought the writing was insipid and the characters unlikable and disturbing. The children especially seemed very unreal to me. This was a real disappointment for me since I have read many of the leader’s previous books and loved them immensely. I really cannot recommend this book at all.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Louise Erdrich takes the title of her book from a game played by children in which, if one’s shadow is stepped on, one is out of the game. She combines this with the thought that some aboriginal cultures hold in which a shadow contains part of a name’s soul, so that if it is stepped on the soul is hurt.
With this premise, she brings us the tale of Gil and Irene, whose marriage is falling apart around them. Irene keeps one diary filled with falsehoods that she plants for Gil to read since he is permanently checking up on her; she keeps one with the actual truth in it at a bank in a safe deposit box.
For his part, Gil is a successful portrait artist. All of his images are of his wife, many of them in humiliating or violent poses. He works out his aggressions toward her on his canvas.
Their three children, of course, are victims of the distrust and agony in their parents marriage.
I establish Erdrich’s non-traditional punctuation (which is to say that she choose not to use it at times) off-putting, and the tale was not as well-constructed as I might have liked. There was tremendous potential for a far more appealing narrative than what she provided. Not a brilliant book, but in fact average and pedestrian.
(Review based on uncorrected advance proof.)
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Louise Erdrich’s prose has run hot and cold for me. Like Medicine enthralled me, but some of the follow-up novels left me cold. Erdrich’s new novel, Shadow Tag has made me a fan again. Unlike Like Medicine which is a collection of linked fleeting tales, Shadow Tag is a straight yet to be novel about a contemporary Native American family tree trying to cope in modern society. Though the characters are Native American, many of the problems the family tree face (divorce and addiction) are common to all cultures. Erdrich’s characterizations are deep, the prose is rich and lyrical. If I have one gripe, I establish the ending to be to some extent manufactured, but you’ll have to choose that for yourself.
My recommendation: Get it.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Irene America and her spouse Gil live in Minneapolis with their three children. Florian is the oldest and is a genious. Riel, the middle child is trying to hold the family tree together. Stoney is the child they had to try and save their marriage when it was too late. Gil is a rather legendary artist whose main theme is Irene. He paints her in every human condition: admiration, aspects of humiliation and in sexual poses. Irene is effective on her doctorate lacking building much progress.
When the book opens, Gil and Irene’s marriage is in deep distress. She wants him to place but can’t seem to get him out of the house. She tries a ploy to get him worked up enough to place. She knows that he is reading her journals and so she writes things in her journal that are untrue and are a treachery to their marriage and intimacy. She also keeps a ‘real’ journal in her safety deposit box where she writes the truth.
This journal is out of Gil’s reach.
Both Gil and Irene have serious drinking problems which contribute to the dysfunctional dynamics of their marriage. Additionally, Gil has an rage problem that he takes out on Irene and the children, regularly being abusive. As with most abusive couples, they are honestly isolated from others though Irene has one friend, Louise.
There are strong American Indian themes in this book. The title ‘Shadow Tag’ relates to indian mythology where one can lose their sense of self if a name steps on their shadow. Gil has stepped on Irene’s and she feels lost and dependent on him. “Because of the shadows, his paintings had the direct force and power of the supernatural, the dream replica, the doppelganger. It was as if a sudden twin had been made right before the theme”. Irene struggles through much of this book to try and find herself. Sorry to say, her inability to place Gil and her extreme drinking get in the way.
I loved the novel reasonably a bit and there were some nice surprises along the way. Some of the plot’s unveiling was a small too pat but additional parts of the book were perfectly written and a joy to read.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5