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Shadow Tag:

A Novel
Front Cover
50 Reviews
HarperCollins, Feb 1, 2011 - Fiction - 272 pages

When Irene America discovers that her artist husband, Gil, has been reading her diary, she begins a secret Blue Notebook, stashed securely in a safe-deposit box. There she records the truth about her life and marriage, while turning her Red Diary?hidden where Gil will find it?into a manipulative charade. As Irene and Gil fight to keep up appearances for their three children, their home becomes a place of increasing violence and secrecy. And Irene drifts into alcoholism, moving ever closer to the ultimate destruction of a relationship filled with shadowy need and strange ironies.

Alternating between Irene's twin journals and an unflinching third-person narrative, Louise Erdrich's Shadow Tag fearlessly explores the complex nature of love, the fluid boundaries of identity, and the anatomy of one family's struggle for survival and redemption.

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I absolutely HATED the ending. - Goodreads
Erdrich is, without a doubt, a magical writer. - Goodreads
This is how the plot spins out of control for everyone. - Goodreads
The writing is also inventive. - Goodreads
The ending of the book was disappointing to me. - Goodreads
Erdrich's writing is beautiful and haunting. - Goodreads

Review: Shadow Tag

User Review - Goodreads

By Louise Erdrich Harper Perennial 272 pgs 978-0061536106 Rating: 4 This book is excruciating. Also spellbinding. You will be appalled by the mind games being played but you will also come to ...

Review: Shadow Tag

User Review  - Elizabeth Moeller - Goodreads

This book tells the story of a marriage that is different from any other that I have read about. Gil is a painter and his wife, Irene, has been the subject of most of his paintings. They drink a lot ... Read full review

All 48 reviews »

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About the author (2011)

Louise Erdrich lives with her family in Minnesota and is the owner of Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore. Ms. Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, and this story—which will, in the end, span one hundred years in the life of an Ojibwe woman—was inspired when Ms. Erdrich and her mother, Rita Gourneau Erdrich, were researching their own family history. Chickadee begins a new part of the story that started with The Birchbark House, a National Book Award finalist; The Game of Silence, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction; and the acclaimed The Porcupine Year.

Ms. Erdrich is also the bestselling author of many critically acclaimed novels for adults, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves and National Book Award finalist The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. She is also the author of the picture book Grandmother's Pigeon, illustrated by Jim LaMarche.

Bibliographic information