The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

The Master Butchers Singing Club Reviews

• 
  Debbie W.

  Why I chose to listen to this audiobook:
  1. since I have never read anything by
  Louise Erdrich before, several GR friends recommended various books of hers;
  2. this audiobook was available on Hoopla; and,
  3. August 2022 is my "As the Spirit Moves Me Month".
  
  Praises:
  1. although this story travels in time from 1917 to 1954, it is not the typical historical fiction being published today. It's a story of humanity - of life and death, love and loss, loyalty and betrayal, secrets and lies, struggles and triumphs;
  2. strong characterization is the star of this novel! Our fierce leading ladies were a force to be reckoned with: feisty Delphine Watzka; loyal Eva Waldvogel; astute Step-And-A-Half. Their equally interesting male counterparts held their own as well: confused Cyprian Lazarre; hardworking Fidelis Waldvogel; town drunk Roy Watzka; Even the secondary characters are in a league of their own! I was transfixed by them all as I followed them throughout the years. Many of them surprised me;
  3. Erdrich is a master of description! The reader cannot help but feel immersed in her stirring prose, right down to the details of the various types of soaps and brushes in Fidelis and Eva's bathroom!
  4. this audiobook was narrated by Erdrich herself! Her pleasant cadence was perfect for this story; and,
  5. Erdrich is known for portraying her Native American roots. I can understand why many readers may think that she veered away from it in this story, but don't let that fool you. Even the title, which many seem inconsequential to the story, packs a punch right up to the end with its powerful symbolism.
  
  Niggle:
  As I've mentioned, the vivid descriptiveness placed the reader into the lives of these characters; however, sometimes it felt a wee bit overwhelming.
  
  Overall Thoughts:
  I really enjoyed following the lives of these unforgettable characters and their interesting (and occasionally, heartbreaking) lives. I will definitely read more by this author!
  
  Recommendation?
  If you prefer fast-paced, instant gratification from a book that's 200 pages or less, then don't read this book. But if you enjoy savoring strong characterization amid extremely descriptive yet jaw-dropping prose, then
  Louise Erdrich is the author for you!
• 
  Barbara H

  How does one review a book written by a true artistic voice and do justice to its telling? One should not expect a synopsis here, that can easily be found elsewhere. This is a beautiful, often painful novel.
  
  Although Louise Erdrich generally places emphasis on the Native American in her books, she has chosen to take a different route with this novel. The occasional references to American Indians are by no means insignificant, however, but add spice to an already intriguing narrative. Her many, varied characters have come alive on the pages to give the reader a sense of recognition throughout. It is not difficult to develop feelings for these individuals, each with his or her intriguing situation. Erdrich has plumbed the depths and peaks of the emotions of her characters with stark, lyrical realism. Her narrative of the environment which existed for them was beautifully and palpably etched throughout.
  
  It is rare that I give a book a five star rating, but this seems to easily merit this place. Although I feel that much more can and should be said about this writer and her offering, I will continue to contemplate the messages that she has set down in her skillful writing.
  
  
  
• 
  Anika

  This book was incredibly frustrating. Erdrich has plenty of skill setting up the beginning of a story - she does it about twelve times - but never manages to actually stay with any particular arc. Stories and characters are established just enough to whet your interest, and then she just wanders to another one. Think you'll be staying with Fidelis, the titular master butcher, after he travels from Germany to North Dakota? Meh, he'll sort of be around, but you'll never get a better sense of how he ticks. Want to know what the clear and immediate attraction between him and Delphine will lead to? That story will totally peter out and happen pretty much offstage. Interested in the murder mystery that gets set up, or the story of Delphine's friend? None of these things will ever really be focused on. You end up with a serious case of literary blue balls, wishing that the author had been as interested in her own characters as you are.
• 
  Margitte

  Louise Erdrich's literary novels are filled with rainbows of different time periods in history, and include expanded lists of characters which could focus on different events and personalities and paints a colorful portrait of life, even if the hues are dark and uncompromising. I guess her books are like certain gourmet foods. An acquired taste.
  
  If I can compare it with other books similar in ambiance, authors such as Amy Tan, Lisa See, Wiley Cash, Erskine Caldwell, Cormack McCarthy and Jonis Agee comes to mind.
  
  I enjoyed this novel set in North Dakota beginning after WWI and ending after WWII. German immigrants settled down in a small town where Fidelis Waldvogel and his wife Eva opened up a butchery and try to fit into a new society.
  
  Their paths crossed with local characters with which they form strong bonds, when Fidelis started the master butcher's singing club.
  
  It became the story of women enduring tough challenges while being involved in different forms of relationships with men and among themselves.
  
  It's not a book for the fainthearted since many brutalities adorn the plot and were often revolting. However, the prose is beautiful in all its blasé-glory. There's no other way of describing the captivating experience, although it took some guts at times to continue reading.
  
  The Round House was my first encounter with this author's work. The writing style is unique, authentic, grounded, honest and real.
  
  Well, this is North Dakota-noir, intense, Gothic and dark at times, but an unforgettable good reading experience. Masterfully written. In an inexplicable way I felt immensely enriched.
• 
  Elaine

  This is a lumpy weird passionate sweep of a novel. There was lots that irked me - pacing that speeded up and then slowed way way down and the central passion seems hollow (and mostly happens offstage) - but I read compulsively nonetheless.
  
  Indeed, the book's real passions are the all the non-couple pairings- women friends, parents and children, adoptive parents, platonic male and female pairs - and these relationships are intense and compelling and give the book a wonderfully rich texture. It's just that we are supposed to believe that the earth moved when our hero and heroine so much as glanced at each other. And that rang false.
  
  But it ultimately doesn't matter because there's so much strange meaty life here. The book is full of imagery about things that worm their way up out of cellars and soil, that won't stay buried, and the narrative is similarly constructed - a North Dakota town in the middle of nowhere ends up being the knot where many threads of history and mystery come together. The Native American genocide, World War I, the Holocaust - it's all there, or you can just read this book as a quirky gothic family tale. Unlike the recent Erdrich (The Round House) I read, this book is not didactic. The Master Butchers Singing Club's slaughters - of Native Americans, livestock, wild dogs - are gutpunchingly stark and brutal (an awful lot of dead things in this book), but the tone is never hectoring.
  
  Ultimately, the book sprawls over its margins a bit. A lot is started, and like life, only some of it is finished. But the gritty, bloody, earthy vibrancy is very compelling and I forgave the book its lumpiness.
  
  I will say that this book is not for the squeamish. There were several extended sequences where I felt literally nauseous reading - I quickly learned this was not a breakfast table book.
• 
  Summer

  VERY mixed feelings about this book. The author has some beautifully worded sentences and an overall engaging story (in the sense that it would have made a good screenplay) however, what the author states in the included interview as to her intention for writing the book (1--to show the affects of war and 2--to show the difficulties of immigrants to build a life in a country devoid of familial support or the familiarity of cultural fortification)was at best, used as a backdrop for a story about the friendship of two women. Even the title is misleading as the importance of the club is not even effectively woven throughout the story, but disappears and then pops up at odd intervals. The same could be said of the character from whose perspective the story is initially told; he seems to be only a vehicle for introducing us to the two women upon whom the majority of the novel is focused.
  
  I finished the book thinking that the author's intentions were very poorly implemented and that I felt shorted by the fact the novel left me with no entertaining questions or themes other than wondering why it deserved to be published.
• 
  Doug Bradshaw

  Louise Erdrich is the Master writer story-teller. For me, one of the marks of a great writer is their ability to explain and make us feel human emotion and psychology that is subtle and virtually unexplainable. This book is chuck full of such amazing and spot on observations about how people think and why they do what they do to each other.
  
  The story covers the period from the end of WW1 through and beyond WW2 and is about a simple German fellow and his bride who move to the US for a better life and end up settling in a small town in North Dakota and then eke out an existence as a butcher with meat market. At the same time, a local girl with a tough background living without a mother and only an alcoholic father, also eking out an existence with her boyfriend doing balancing acts and shows in nearby towns, meets the Germans and an interesting partnership is born.
  
  Here are some additional random thoughts about the book and contain ***SPOILERS***:
  
  1. The book is very graphic about the world of slaughtering animals, the smells, the cleaning rituals, the ruined hands, the bones molding in the back yard, dogs taking away carcasses and on and on. She must have grown up on a farm and must have experienced first hand the elements of raising animals. There wasn't much left to the imagination. She tells the whole story and I was there experiencing it all with the family.
  
  2. Although the two wars and violence of both wars and the suffering and the odd position American Germans were in is written about, the historical aspect and history of the wars is a minor detail and not the main story. The main story is the interaction over the years between an amazing and lovable female character and the German couple and their four children, most of it set in their meat market.
  
  3. The main female character is young and naive and has had a difficult life growing up. Although the words homosexual or gay were not use then, her handsome and talented boyfriend turns out to be gay. She actually discovers this by observing him having sex with another man in a hidden wooden area. She was far enough hidden and away that she couldn't see the details of what was happening, but it was an excellent and heartbreaking sub-story that seemed so very real that I had to wonder if the author went through something similar. I had to keep thinking to myself that this author, who is three years younger than me and published the book 8 years ago, has been through a lot and has seen a lot and hasn't had a particularly easy life either.
  
  4. There were some minor disappointments. Since her gay boyfriend was such a disappoint to her sexually, I was hoping we'd get to hear that her relationship with the man who became her husband was stellar. But there was never any mention of it. That brings up another of the author's excellent writing skills. Many of the relationships between male and females in the book are paced so carefully and occur with only minor incremental growth and progress that it was somewhat hard on me. I wanted closure now, things to be easier and fixed like I hoped they eventually would be. But it ended up that when I finally got what I hoped was coming, it was more rewarding than it would have been.
  
  5. There is gruesome death here, genealogy that will floor you in the very last chapter, a little fun PG13 sex, death caused by war, extreme and realistic love and caring.
  
  I didn't love the title of the book, but I did enjoy all of the comments about the singing club. Give this one a try. It is truly outstanding.
  
• 
  Wanda Pedersen

  Actual rating: 3.5 stars
  
  When I first started reading The Master Butchers Singing Club, my initial response was “Not another war book!” as I am not a fan of war fiction. Both World Wars do feature in the book, but they do not overpower the story, for which I am very thankful.
  
  I don’t think that I have ever before consciously encountered a book set in the period between the two World Wars and that is odd—it’s a very rich period of history to explore. The author’s style reminded me strongly of Canadian author Robertson Davies (a compliment coming from me, as I adore his Deptford series, which also deals with small town characters). Her characters are very unique and yet they are ordinary people, living ordinary lives in many ways. Alcoholics, orphans, poor people, butchers, singers, Native people, circus people, murderers, undertakers, pilots, children, all making their way through the world as best they can. Erdrich doesn’t make them flamboyantly odd, just the regular peculiar that one finds in small communities. It strikes me that this could have been a Canadian book—the northern U.S. shares many environmental and cultural threads with Canada, I think.
  
  This is probably also the best depiction of a love triangle that I have ever encountered in literature. Several triangle relationships hinge on Fidelis, the master butcher. His wife Eva and her friend Delphine. His sister Tante and Delphine. Fidelis, Delphine and Cyprian. And yet, as his name would indicate, Fidelis is faithful to each of the women in his life. He is the provider for Eva until her death, considers Tante until she returns to Germany, and waits until he is sure that Cyprian is truly gone before proposing to Delphine.
  
  Another pseudo-Canadian theme in the novel is that of identity, a well-worn Canuck obsession. We get to watch Delphine struggle with her lack of knowledge about her origins, and see each of Fidelis’ sons forge lives for themselves and decide where their hearts lie.
  
  So many underlying themes, well written, and thought provoking.
  
• 
  Linda Hart

  Disappointing. Uninspiring. The combination of too many tantalizingly bizarre, yet underdeveloped characters and a sprawling, meandering, messy plot left this book lacking in every area. The book contains unnecessary gratuitous sex, is way too long, and has a gimmicky ending. Because of hearing difficulties, the audio version was difficult for me to understand, so reading may have been a better experience, but still, Erdrich can do better than this.
• 
  Mosca

  ******************************************
  
  Louise Erdrich likes to sneak up behind us and surprise us with what we already know but are trying to forget.
  
  Death and life are the same. Our own lives lead us towards our own deaths as we live from the proteins that we harvest from those other living creatures killed for our nourishment. And we, ourselves, live and die for the nourishment of others.
  
  That which we see around us is so much more than we suspect; but is hidden from us by, not only our own self-imposed illusions, but also by the deceptions imposed upon us by others for our own, and their own, protection.
  
  This book plays out those realities in ways that confuse and deceive us so that we may then learn for ourselves that which we have forgotten.
  
  This is one more gem; and Louise Erdrich keeps making jewelery.
  
• 
  Patricia Williams

  Yes, I finally finished this book and have decided this writer is just not for me. I tried another of her books and could not get through it. This one had a different subject and I wanted to try it. I did read the whole book but it was a trial. The main character Delphine was very likeable and I enjoyed her story. Some of the other subjects in the book, not as interesting and too detailed. I liked the story but to me, it just took too long to tell it. It was a very good story and this author is an excellent writer, just that all this detail is not for me. I"m sure there are many who enjoy her.
• 
  Joy D

  Fidelis, a former WWI German sniper, marries Eva, his deceased friend’s pregnant fiancé, and emigrates from Germany to Argus, North Dakota, to establish a butcher’s shop. Delphine, daughter of an alcoholic single father, meets Cyprian, a former WWI US Marine, and they create a traveling acrobatic act. They eventually return to Argus and pretend to be married to avoid gossip. Delphine and Eva become fast friends, and the storyline follows their converging lives from WWI to several years past WWII.
  
  The strengths of this novel include deeply drawn characters and an unusual plotline. The characters are complex, filled with internal contradictions. For example, Fidelis is a butcher so he seems rather unfeeling in his work of constantly killing animals, but he possesses a beautiful singing voice and treats his family with tenderness. Even the minor characters exhibit a unique identity and emotional depth.
  
  War and its ongoing impact are recurrent themes. Initially, war affects Cyprian and Fidelis, but the next war wreaks havoc on Fidelis’s sons. The plot includes such diverse elements as the discovery of three bodies in a cellar, a sexual identity crisis, and a tie-in with the Wounded Knee massacre. There are a few brutal scenes, mostly involving animals. Several mysteries get set up and are not always resolved. It is rich in period details and beautifully written. By the end, the author has taken the reader in unexpected directions and several secrets are revealed.
  
• 
  Julie G

  Do not be confused by the title or the cover of this book. This is not, as they are calling it these days, historical fiction. You will not find in this book the cheesy, 3-star variety of historical fiction that book club hosts are choosing so as not to be too terribly distracted from their Pinot Noir. No, my dears, this is a real book.
  
  Actually, this is literature, and it is often disturbing, frequently thought-provoking, and if mine had not been a library copy, properly ruined of its re-sale value by margin notes and folded pages.
  
  I am new to Louise Erdrich (pleased to meet you), and I will return. Soon.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Britta Böhler

  3.5* rounded up
• 
  Albert

  Fidelis, a German sniper in WWI, must report the death of his best friend to his friend’s pregnant fiancé. He falls in love with her and marries her. He emigrates to the US because of the suffering German economy and ends up in Argus, ND because that is where his money runs out. There he finds work for his skills as a butcher and sausage-maker. He soon is able to bring his wife Ava and their young family to join him. Ava meets Delphine and a strong friendship develops. The bond between Delphine and the Waldvogel family (Ava, Fidelis and their four boys) grows and changes them all.
  
  Previously I had read The Round House and The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich, both of which I enjoyed but did not love. My wife had read The Master Butcher’s Singing Club years ago and encouraged me to read it; she felt that I would enjoy it more than the other two. I found it to be, by far in my opinion, the best of the three. I thought the character development in The Master Butcher’s Singing Club was much stronger and felt Erdrich more fully developed and brought to a conclusion several subplots, whereas in the other two novels the subplots felt either too lightly developed or incomplete. I really enjoyed, in The Master Butcher’s Singing Club, the intermixing of Erdrich’s German and American Indian heritage; I felt the contrast of the two enriched the story.
  
  While I am not sure where I will go as far as reading any more of Erdrich’s novels, I do strongly recommend this one.
• 
  Marc Gerstein

  The is an OK book that fell far short of what it could have been, the reason, probably, having to do with the authors revelation in the Acknowledgements that follow the text, specifically, the third and final paragraph in which she acknowledges that members of her family inspired key characters (although I suspect she give short shrift to the existent that Delphine is based on her grandmother).
  
  This is a big, sprawling family saga with intriguing ethnic and historical angles. Normally I love works like this. And normally, I’m flabbergasted, in a good way, by the sort of linguistic craftsmanship Erdrich can obviously bring to the table, and often does in this work. Ultimately, though, I think she was way too close to her characters and stories and did not pull them off as effectively as she might have had she been able to approach them as a novelist. Fascinating story lines get set up, and then seem to dissipate, or vanish. Characters suddenly make bold leaps that leave the reader wondering how they got from there to here; after a while, I stopped backtracking to look for things I might have missed. And the pacing here was odd, verbal flourishes and rich detailed narration is wonderful -- in the right places. But Erdrich goes into it almost randomly and sometimes, it seems to take forever to traverse events not significant enough to warrant the Henry James treatment. And I really wish Erdrich would have been able to find a more artistically satisfying way of delivering the information we get in the final chapter which, as it stands, comes off as a clumsy add-on.
  
  I started with the intent of giving this three stars but I find that the more I write, the more likely I am to talk my rating down. I don’t want to go there since there is a lot here that was enjoyable and engaging; a terrific cast of characters for one thing and some wonderfully offbeat story lines. I’ll just stop here, with the three stars, and wish Erdrich had been able to detach her novelist self from her family memories and make this all it could have been.
• 
  Laura

  4.5 stars. Definitely a winner. Truly awesome stuff. Closest book to this for writing quality is Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer. Will be reading all of hers.
• 
  Donna

  To begin with, I’m a vegetarian, so all the highly detailed butchering of animals in this book wasn’t easy for me to read about, though I don’t believe it influenced my review. Now you would think I’d have been prepared for some butchering, considering the title, but somehow, I thought there would be more singing than slaughtering. Still, the slaying was more prevalent for that of the characters’ hearts and, in comparison, not nearly as much for what went on their dinner plates.
  
  Because each joy in this book had two sorrows to its name. While it may have been realistic, it was hard to take over the course of this book, and it made it seem longer than it was by its page count alone. I do think the author got a little carried away when it came to presenting numerous tragedies, with her skimming over the joyous times to give the reader only a taste of them, but really digging in to spoon up the difficult times by describing them in stunning detail. It made me feel a little bereft, as if “nothing gold could stay,” in the characters’ lives for longer than a few pages at a time.
  
  On the plus side, the characters felt like real people to me, ones I suffered along with and celebrated with on those rare occasions when all was right in their world. And the writing was wonderful and splendidly detailed, bringing those times and places alive for me. That the story was unfocused might be seen as a positive if you imagine it being the same as in real life, but I was never sure who was driving it, making it unpredictable. Just when I thought it was so and so’s story, the focus changed to concentrate on someone else. But everyone in it was connected with three generations interacting to form one cohesive story by the end.
  
  This is the fifth book I’ve read by this author and it was my second favorite behind
  The Night Watchman. If you read it, enjoy the unique characters and the expressive writing. Just be prepared for big doses of sadness to go along with the spoonfuls of sweetness served up.
  
• 
  Julie

  This was an oddly disturbing and challenging novel for me to get through, and yet, in the end I felt amply rewarded for my perseverance. I can't say that Erdrich has an easy style -- in fact, at times it is frustratingly obtuse, perhaps even deliberately so, but she still leaves a very tantalizing trail of breadcrumbs that you can't help put pick up after.
  
  Throughout, we explore the weight of history: deeply personal stories of scarred individuals who --much like the rest of us -- struggle to make sense of the progress of their lives, while dragging along the weight of their ancestors. Nicely confined within the ramparts of World Wars I and II, we garner a unique perspective on this era through Erdrich's deformed characters: some in body, others in soul. Unrelentingly, she exposes the tender cuts, and the raw wounds of the butchery of life: a master craftswoman in her own right.
  
  Be warned: it's work, and no mistake that you'll be exhausted by it. I'm not one, like so many others, who found it easy, or gripping from the start. For me, it worked its way under my skin slowly until I came to the realization that I would not soon forget these people because they'd attached themselves to my nerve-endings. The memory of this book will always be raw.
  
  
• 
  Bari

  The book had my complete interest from the first two chapters, but I had no idea initially where the author would take it. It was a fascinating story, or rather collection of stories, particulary how each character's life fell into pattern with the others'. One of the strongest points for me was how she wrote and used time. Some events were written in a sentence or two and others lasted chapters, and it was not about how significant or trivial the event was, but rather it was like seeing each event happen in real time, as the characters experienced it. Thank you Jen for the recommendation!
• 
  Deb

  This book was a complete and welcome surprise. Wonderful writing and an easy stream of words pull and guide you through this life cycle of a story The Master Butchers Singing Club.
  
  I always seem to detail the shelf life or position of said book as it makes itself known to me. How I became familiar with it. It’s purchase. How long it sat on my hallowed shelves. How it made it to a final cut but then due to lack of ripeness ended up right back in its home snuggled in comfortably with other books hoping to audition again soon for the pleasure of my company. This book is no different. It appeared at the audition several times only to be sent back again and again. Oh but the Master Butchers Singing Clubknew it’s worth and did not give up for a whole year, I think and thankfully I allowed it a chance to “show me what cha’ got”.
  
  What I got, was nothing like what I assumed this book to be. This was actually sort of a family/small town saga reminiscent of Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald or Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris. I’m actually shocked that Oprah hasn’t gotten her hands on this one yet. (In a good way.)
  
  We meet Fidelis Waldvogel as he collapses in exasperation across his bed in his childhood home in Germany after walking home from the devastation that he survived in World War I. Fidelis, exudes a measure of quiet strength of which benefits carried him safely through the war. Fidelis is a man of extreme honor. After bringing the bad news to his brother in arms fiance’, Eva, he offers himself in marriage and surrenders himself helplessly to an enduring dedicated love. This is the journey of Fidelis Waldvogel, a master butcher taught by his father, who immigrates to American with a suitcase full of expertly made German sausages, sharp knives and a dream. However, the life of this book is complete and this tale would be incomplete if there were not various characters to enhance, dance and live alongside the large presence that is Fidelis in the small town of Argus, North Dakota. Roy Watzka is the town drunk with a secret past. Delphine Watzka is Roy’s daughter who in the future lives a full and complex life but upon introduction is having a complicated relationship with closeted Cyprian Lazzare. Children grow. Seasons change. Residents live and die. The world turns and Step and a half walks the town with her cart full of rags and what not. Ups and downs. Curves and sharp turns. Anticipation, aggravation, justification.. So is The Master Butcher’s Singing Club.
  
  This book has so much, it is hard to be vague and give a review. But believe me, there is so much one could never give away all the nuances and complexities of this book. This was not a difficult read in the least and I enjoyed reading it. It is pretty darn close to a perfect score but falls short for just a few reasons. I make reference to the “life” in this book because it is full of the labyrinth of complexities that surround the various lives. There were various low points and climactic points but always just falling slightly short of “the big one”. Sorrow, but could have been deeper. Good but not perfect, just kinda ok. Possible brimming passion but no.. no, just smoldering. The possibility of tremendous “Wow” climatic points were set up and then.. no, no the characters ultimately are unfulfilled so reader you must also be (in keeping with the concept)… un-full-filled. Yes, Yes, Yes… Noooo. It was a lot without still being enough. Short. Like $.99 cents… enough.. but with one more penny it could be $1.00 a dollar. Just NOT enough. Like a hand full of cereal. It could tied you over but why not give milk, a spoon and a bowl for a meal.. Just NOT enough. Like fun without the happy ending. JUST not enough. I could go on, I won’t. ;o)
  
  Giving it a technical 4 ½ on the Deb score board. On the GR board it’s a 4 stars but know that silently.. (whispers) I give it that half!
  Yes I recommend: historical fiction readers, international readers, Readers. It’s good. Good first start to my year of book challenge.
  
  *******SPOILER DISCUSSION/OBSERVATION POINTS BELOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW, DON’T SCROLL*********
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  -Interesting the relationship between Cyprian & Delphine. He needed her and loved her as a sister but because he could not make the romantic sexual connection with the relationship this was just not enough for Delphine. I was glad when she turned down his proposal. To marry him would have been to steal all prospects of true intimacy.
  
  -I was disappointed for all Fidelis & Delphine’s smoldering… it was all smoke with no fire!
  
  -Eva, the ultimate mother was a mother to all. Delphine, due to lack of mothering allowed Eva and Cyprian to mother her.
  
  -I ALWAYS knew Step and a Half was supposed to be her mother but not that she was still adopted.
  
  -The relationships with the grown up sons I felt could have been more in depth.
  
  -I don't know that the title fits because the club is not the focus.
• 
  Michael Finocchiaro

  This was yet another wonderful book by Erdrich about a German immigrant in North Dakota mentioned in the title, but more about the protagonist who arrives a little later in the story. We see the aftermath of WWI, the fracture of WWII, and how the world is changing as the characters evolve and grow. It is a well-written, compelling story.
• 
  Jonas

  If the author wasn’t Louise Erdrich, I would never have picked this book up based on its title and cover. I would have missed out on an incredible yarn. It is the story of Delphine (daughter of the town drunk) and Phidalis and their respective families. It begins with the remnants and residual effects of WWI. As the narrative progresses friendships are formed, rivalries erupt, there is a singing group, an unsolved (mysterious) death is investigated, a murder that follows, and the Second World War looms.
  
  Phidalis is a German immigrant who makes his way to North Dakota with a set of knives and a suit case full of sausages. He brings his family over soon after. His wife, Ava, and Delphine become friends and Delphine helps with their four sons and their butcher shop. The boys have their own adventures, love interests, and play their own parts in WWII. Louise Eldrich does an amazing job naming and developing characters. Step-and-a-Half has the most memorable name in the book. As with most of her books, the history of Native Americans is represented.
  
  I listened to the Audible version. The author does an amazing job with narration. If you are looking for a unique and surprising story, I strongly recommend The Master Butcher’s Singing Club.
  
• 
  Diane S ☔

  Review to follow.
• 
  Ron Charles

  Stories rise from Louise Erdrich like smoke from a campfire. Over the past 20 years, starting with "Love Medicine," which won the National Book Critics Circle award, she's produced a series of captivating novels about native American life.
  
  Her latest, "The Master Butchers Singing Club," bears only traces of that heritage, but its appeal stems from the same quality that makes her novels set on the Chippewa reservation so good. Despite her critical success, her sophisticated style, and her clear political interests, Erdrich never forgets that we're still hungry to be carried away by good stories.
  
  "The Master Butcher" opens in the ashes of World War I. A German sniper named Fidelis has married his late friend's pregnant wife, an act of camaraderie that quickly deepens. Graced with an eerie stillness, he sets about the careful task of building a home and forgetting the horrors he saw and inflicted. "He moved from the dangerous quiet where he lived," Erdrich writes, "into the unacceptable knowledge that in spite of the dead weight of killed souls and what he'd learned in the last three years about the monstrous ground of existence and his own murderous efficiency, he was meant to love." Even far from the sacred land of her native Americans, Erdrich knows just how to hover between what's plain and what's extraordinary, building on the life of this common German rifleman a story of legendary proportions.
  
  "Tons of power were behind his slightest gesture," but Fidelis's destiny is shaped as much by the tragedy of world war as by the wonder of sliced bread. Spotting a single piece sent from America one day, Fidelis decides he must immigrate to this land of invention. He packs his knives and a suitcase of "his father's miraculous smoked sausage" and sails for New York, planning to sell the deli goods to pay for a ticket to Seattle. By North Dakota, he's out of sausage, and so he and his family settle there. It's a perfect example of how Erdrich can celebrate the triviality that determines the vectors of our lives.
  
  In the little town of Argus, N.D., Fidelis and his wife meet a young actress who's returned home to care for her father. To Delphine, Fidelis and Eva have the ideal family. But, frankly, the Osbournes would seem like the ideal family to her. She's living with a very sweet acrobat, but he has a somewhat limited set of skills. Erdrich explains that "Delphine soon found that balancing was really the only thing he could do. Literally, the only thing he could do."
  
  After a few months performing together, she discovers that one of the things her partner is balancing is his sexual orientation, a predicament neither of them can understand in a culture that provides no way to fathom their devotion.
  
  Unfortunately, she doesn't have much time to dwell on this problem because when she returns home to check up on her alcoholic father, she discovers a family of dead bodies in his cellar.
  
  It's one of the many marvels of Erdrich's fiction that she can make all this simultaneously ridiculous and normal and horrible. She has such a great ear for the weird comedy of her characters' lives, but she never sacrifices them for laughs.
  
  Delphine's father, a man so wasted by alcohol that he couldn't hear three people calling for help beneath the floor, eventually emerges as a person of great sensitivity. And in the strange union of Delphine and her gay partner, Erdrich explores the interlaced currents of romance, affection, and sexual attraction with remarkable tact and understanding.
  
  The only steady influence in Delphine's life - despite her partner's celebrated balance - is her friendship with the butcher's wife, Eva. With awed appreciation that she never allows to slip into envy, Delphine eyes Eva's fine housekeeping, her four healthy sons, and especially her quiet, solid husband Fidelis. Eventually, she begins working for Eva in the butcher shop and raising the four boys, losing herself in a mountain of work and yet another "marriage" that allows her no sexual consummation.
  
  With the charming rhythm of stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, "The Master Butcher" moves through the events of this town in small family moments carved into legend by the power of her remarkable voice: the battle of rival butchers carried out entirely through their respective dogs; the courtship of a female undertaker "who already knew the art of using makeup in the next life, as well as this one"; a dying woman's first airplane flight; the collapse of a boy's woodland hideaway. And what's more, Erdrich isn't afraid of loose ends or rough edges. The blurry periphery around these stories remains deliciously ambiguous.
  
  Finding herself again and again a witness to tragedy or its nurse, Delphine "marvels how anyone lived at all, for any amount of time. Life was a precious feat of daring, she saw, improbable as Cyprian balancing, strange as a feast of slugs." To read a novel by Erdrich is to witness that daring feat, performed with the kind of elegance and grace that makes the sweep of one's own life seem a little more miraculous, too.
  
  
  http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0206/p1...
• 
  Mara

  The master butcher's singing club of the title doesn't really figure into this book at all. Fidelis, the master butcher in question, does start a singing group in his new home of Argus, North Dakota, that's meant to reflect the master butcher's singing club he was a part of back in Germany, as a place where outside grievances can be set aside.
  
  But this story is really about Delphine, a native of, though an outsider in, Argus. It's about her relationship with men, sort of, but really about what she discovers when she meets Eva, Fidelis's wife. In Eva, Delphine discovers the mother she never had, as well as a best friend. That Delphine comes to love Eva's family as her own is fortunate when Eva is struck with a massive tumor. Delphine nurses her until her death and then cares for Fidelis and their sons.
  
  All of this makes for a story that is lovingly told. What threw me for a loop, though, was at the very end of the book when the truth about Delphine's mother is revealed to the reader, but not to Delphine herself. Although I was vaguely interested to have this mystery cleared up, I don't really think it was necessary to the story at all. By including it at the end, it seemed as though we were supposed to think that this revelation was the whole point of the story, rather than an incidental part of the character Delphine became. The answer provided excellent closure to the story as a whole, but part of me wishes Erdrich had finished the book without it.
• 
  Carol

  I hated to see this one end as I fell in love with the characters. In the first chapters you follow Fidelis Waldvogel from the World War I German battlefields, to his journey to America with only a suitcase of sausages and his master butcher knives. He lands in Argus, North Dakota, works for a time for Pete Kozka, always letting him know his intention to strike out on his own. This he does and the ensuing rivalry between the two is a story in itself. Enter two more well fleshed characters, Delphine Watzka , with the rock hard flat stomach that is used as a table by her friend and odd lover, Cyprian, a balancing expert with a traveling act. Add Ron , Delphine's hard drinking, poor excuse of a father with his own dark secrets, Step-and-a-half, the local rag picker, love, friendship, murder, and small town life as our nation recovers from one war only to lead into another, making this a story that is hard to put down. Erdrich blends her love of history and Ojibwa heritage yet again, in this saga. A bit long, perhaps, maybe too much story for one book, but still, the characters absolutely shine. A good choice for book groups. I haven't read an Erdrich book in a long time and was quite entertained by this one.
• 
  Stephanie

  Story set in the years between the end of The Great War and WWII. Fidelis Waldvolgel returns from the war to deliver the news of his best friend, Johannes's death to a young and very pregnant Eva. Fidelis vowed to marry Eva in Johannes' stead and Eva, in her grief, accepts. The story then follows Fidelis, now a master butcher like his father, as he travels to America and takes the train west as far as his money will take him which ends up being Argus North Dakota. Fidelis begins working for a butcher who has already set up shop, and he eventually earns enough to bring Eva and baby Franz to join him. They have another baby, Markus, and then twins boys, Erich and Emil. They purchase an old homestead at the edge of town, and open their own butcher shop.
  
  About the time that the new shop is becoming successful, a prodigal child returns to Argus. Delphine Watzka, daughter of the town drunk, returns from her travels as a performer in a side-show balancing act with her "husband", Cyprian. The relationship between Delphine and Cyprian is not what it seems but they love each other, in a way, and support each other through many difficult times. Delphine's story is complicated, and she turns to Eva as a sort of surrogate mother, as her how own mother died long ago, when Delphine was a toddler. Eva takes to Delphine and they soon become the best of friends. Years go by, many things happen, clear up to the end of WWII.
  
  The first half of the book was very good, but it seemed like the author lost steam when it came to recounting life after the boys grew up. The reveal about Delphine's mother was so odd coming at the very end like that. I thought it could have come sooner and been explored a bit more but that's not what happened. I think this could have been much better but it wasn't bad either.