Reading for a quiet, solitary place.

I was very careful as to where I started reading Louise Erdrich's quietly powerful novel The Painted Drum. Having read another of her recent works, The Master Butchers Singing Club, I knew that I wanted to be somewhere quiet, perhaps outdoors, where I would be allowed to devote myself to entering the world Erdrich creates. I probably didn't need to try so hard; the lyrical, effortless style of Erdrich's storytelling in The Painted Drum would have quickly made me oblivious to the world outside the page, whatever setting I happened to be in.

Like many of her other works, Erdrich draws on her Ojibwe roots for much of the novel's themes and characters' histories, but The Painted Drum is a bit of a departure in that it opens in distant New Hampshire. While coping with her own personal struggles, Faye Travers, herself part Ojibwe, discovers an extraordinary painted drum while tagging items for an estate sale. Mysteriously, she hears the drum sound, but is startled that no one else seems to be able to hear it. Intrigued, she steals the drum and eventually uncovers the history of loss, grief and forgiveness that led to its creation. Restored to its rightful place, the drum continues to mark the lives of those who come into contact with it, including Faye.

The Painted Drum spans half a continent and generations of families touched by loss. Erdrich, like the best storytellers, skillfully weaves her narrative of different families and eras into a continuous tale, with a keen sense of pacing. There's a gentle sort of ebb and flow to her work that I have yet to come across anywhere else, and always makes her novels well worth picking up.