The Mighty Red

A Novel

By: Louise Erdrich

Narrated by: Marin Ireland

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION

A Best Book of the Year: New York Times, The New Yorker, Time, Kirkus, Harper's Bazaar

""A novel set in a small prairie community. . . that somehow also captures the world."" — Parade

In this stunning novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich tells a story of love, natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people’s lives.

In the Red River Valley of North Dakota, several lives revolve around a wedding fraught with desire, jealousy, and uncertainty. Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed goth who can’t read her own future but will settle for fulfilling his. Her best friend, Hugo, a gentle, red-haired, homeschooled giant, also loves Kismet and is determined to steal her away and build a life together. Kismet’s mother, Crystal, drives a truck for Gary’s family, and on her nightly runs, tunes in to the darkness of late-night radio, experiences visions of guardian angels, and worries about what’s to come, for her daughter and herself.

The Mighty Red is Louise Erdrich at her consummate best. A novel of tender humor, disquietude, yearning, community, and family, it is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. Human time, deep time, Red River time, and geological time are explored alongside the impact of crises in our own time—climate change, the depletion of natural resources, the economic meltdown of 2008. It is a story about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor.

Author should have narrated

Where was Louise? Marine was not up to par. Missed opportunity. Nothing else to say, 15 word minimum.

Narration was fantastic

Unfortunately I didn’t think the story was. I typically love Louise Erdrich books and although her beautiful writing style was there, the story wasn’t for me.

Wonderful Book - A New Favorite Author

I had never read or listened to anything by this author but I will seek out more of her work. I love stories about people & families. I usually enjoy southern authors but this is a departure from my usual. I learned about an area of the country that I know little about. Beet farming was central in this tale. If that makes you think UGH…….don’t let it! It’s just the background & the story is rich & entertaining. Human nature, a little science, a little comedy & lots of great creative story telling. Always a mark of a good listen, I was sad for it to end! I listen to several Audiobooks a month & I say don’t pass this one by!

Well-defined and developed. believable characters.

I like the historical fiction aspect of this compelling story. And it had the right amount of wry humor and important uses of agricultural science.

So, so good.

This book is one of my favorites by Erdrich. They are all great, but this one was really special. The narrator was perfect in every way. I can’t wait to listen again.