Gradually he's allowed shared visits with his birth family, whose sorrow mirrors the Raviches' own. His fierce, rebellious new 'sister,' Maggie, welcomes him as a coconspirator who can ease her volatile mother's terrifying moods. Plagued by thoughts of suicide, Nola dotes on him, keeping her darkness at bay.

LaRose is quickly absorbed into his new family. 'Our son will be your son now,' they tell them. Following an ancient means of retribution, he and Emmaline will give LaRose to the grieving Peter and Nola. Horrified at what he's done, the recovered alcoholic turns to tradition - the sweat lodge - for guidance, and finds a way forward. The two families have always been close, sharing food, clothing, and rides into town their children played together despite going to different schools and Landreaux's wife, Emmaline, is half sister to Dusty's mother, Nola. The youngest child of his friend and neighbor, Peter Ravich, Dusty was best friends with Landreaux's five-year-old son, LaRose. When he staggers closer, he realizes he has killed his neighbor's five-year-old son, Dusty Ravich. He shoots with easy confidence - but when the buck springs away, Landreaux realizes he's hit something else, a blur he saw as he squeezed the trigger. Landreaux Iron stalks a deer along the edge of the property bordering his own. In this literary masterwork, the author of the National Book Award-winning The Round House and the Pulitzer Prize nominee The Plague of Doves wields her breathtaking narrative magic in an emotionally haunting contemporary tale of a tragic accident, a demand for justice, and a profound act of atonement with ancient roots in native American culture.

Larose novel