Book of the Week: Shadow Tag

Louise Erdrich's Shadow Tag is a tale about a disintegrating marriage and dysfunctional family, and while it is superbly written I found it a fairly uncomfortable read. Irene is a mother of three, back to work on a doctoral thesis on the painter George Catlin, who is married to Gil, an artist who has gained fame for his portraits of his wife, many of which feature her in explicit and sometimes humiliating poses. "Here is the most telling fact: you wish to possess me," Irene writes in her journal about Gil. "Here is another fact: I loved you and let you think you could." When Irene realizes that Gil is reading her diary she locks up the real one (blue) in a safe deposit box and begins a false journal (red) that she leaves for her husband to read filled lies meant to injure him. So begins this tale of obsession and manipulation.

This was my first Louise Erdrich novel, and while I found it difficult to root for either Gil or Irene--who are slowly destroying their family with deception and alcoholism, violence and exploitation--Erdrich's elegant prose and the back-and-forth narration between the two diaries and the third person makes Shadow Tag an interesting read. In the end, the characters I found myself caring for the most for in this novel--which was named by Oprah as one of her Top 10 Books for Summer 2010--are the three children: rebellious genius Florian, sensitive Riel who is planning to protect her family at any cost, and Stoney, who the novel points out was "born at the beginning of the end." As Irene and Gil careen towards this end I found myself holding my breath as the book revealed just how much damage they were capable of inflicting along the way.

Browse Inside this novel.




Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for the review copy.