Louise Erdrich: The Master Butchers Singing Club

Reviewed by PHILIPPA JAMIESON

Louise Erdrich is in my view one of the best contemporary American novelists, but her latest offering is a disappointment. The cover intrigues, with images of meat and sausages in rich reds and browns, and it starts promisingly enough.

The Master Butchers Singing Club is a departure from Erdrich's usual characters from the Ojibwe tribe (from which the author is descended). This time she is inspired by her German heritage.

Fidelis Waldvogel, a young German butcher whose best friend is killed in World War I, marries his widow, Eva. They emigrate to America, settling in Argus, North Dakota, where Fidelis establishes a butchery - and the male choir of the title.

Meanwhile, Delphine Watzka and partner Cyprian are travelling around performing circus-style balancing acts. On returning to Delphine's drunkard father in Argus they uncover a grisly secret in his basement.

Gradually Delphine's fortunes become entwined with those of the Waldvogels. Themes of butchery and killing run through the book, though it is more sad than gruesome, and members of the Waldvogel family end up fighting on opposing sides in World War II.

Sprawling and ambitious, the book covers the period from 1918 to the mid-50s, and introduces a host of idiosyncratic characters: the resourceful Delphine, Eva, a perfect angel hausfrau, Clarisse the embalmer, unrelentingly pursued by the portly Sheriff Hock, and the strange scrap collector Step-and-a-Half. Descriptions are imaginative and poetic - the butchery, for example, glistens with visceral detail.

Where this novel falls down is the uneven plot, which lurches haphazardly, lifting the reader up and then pulling the rug out in anticlimax - several times. There are too many unexplained loose ends for my satisfaction and the omniscient point of view scatters the focus. The Master Butchers Singing Club lacks the cohesion and spirit of Erdrich's previous novels - I'd recommend most of them over this one.

(Flamingo)

* Philippa Jamieson is a Dunedin freelance writer.