The Master Butchers Singing Club cover art

The Master Butchers Singing Club

A Novel

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About this listen

From National Book Award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author Louise Erdrich, a profound and enchanting new novel: a richly imagined world “where butchers sing like angels.”

Having survived World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow 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.

 Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature Native American
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An off-reservation story which weaves together, in class Erdrich fashion, the family ties across Argus to pre and post-war Germany. It's a pleasure to hear Erdrich voice her own creations but there are a few chapters where the recording is muffled. A minor issue for what was overall a beautiful, lyric story with sharp points of tragedy, soft edges of beauty and love, and always the glowing and harsh landscape of the Midwest.

Stunning story with some recording glitches

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The stories of people who left their countries to make better lives for themselves and the trials they faced is harrowing in parts. A woman who asks a friend to write to her mother to describe how she dies is just breathtakingly sad.
Life is a harsh reality for most people, if not for your whole life then for some of it. the making of tragedy 'normal' in its ma ny varieties is why I love Erdrich's work. There are always human qualities and dilemmas that we all have to face.
The reading was enchanting too.

Heartbreaking

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