Perma Red

“[Perma Red has] beautiful language, complex characters, a legitimate and earned sense of where you are in the story. It’s also a gnarly, unflinching look at violence against women. The writing is lovely, emotionally resonant and filled to the brim with depth and pathos for the Flathead and the people who live there. But it’s a novel of pain and sorrow first and foremost, and it’s a pain and sorrow that looks a lot like it has for the last half millenia.”

“It’s not just erotic desire that [Earling] does so well… . Louise’s world is one in which all the senses are always on hyper-alert… . This young girl’s struggle to save her own life makes for a novel that has you on hyper-alert as you read: alive, alive to the world it conjures.”

“Haunting and memorable … Earling’s deliberate pacing gives an otherworldly feel to the grim circumstances of the time, and makes real the hypnotic effect of this slim, green-eyed woman on the men around her.”

“Beautifully written … Establishes Earling as the literary heir to great American Indian writers such as James Welch and Louise Erdrich.”

“A new writer comes straight at us out of the West, bypassing the conscious mind in describing her world of Indian reservations, so that we almost smell that world before we understand it… . [Earling’s] writing is the most physical I have read in a long time… . Verbs and adjectives dance in new configurations. All this and plot too.”

“What a story! Vivid and startling, this heartbreaking novel tells the story of Louise White Elk, a wild and unattainable girl growing to womanhood on the Flathead Reservation in Northwest Montana. Beautiful but crushed by poverty and the sorrow inflicted by the clash of cultures, harsh circumstance, and the friction between love and power, Louise is pursued by several men. A wealthy white land speculator and a rodeo cowboy tempt her. The tribal policeman who tries repeatedly to save her cannot subdue his tainted motives. But it is the violent, unpredictable Baptiste Yellowknife, with his connection to the old ways, who holds great power over her. Though she uses each to help her find her way, no one and nothing is simple here. These complex characters and the rough beauty of the Flathead Reservation will stay with you long after you close the cover.”

“From the very first sentence of Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling, Louise White Elk’s struggle is unrelenting, swallowing readers into a story that shocks, and somehow, brims with complicated, raw hope.”

“This is a book I’ve read again and again, and each time I do, Earling’s words are a treasured and welcomed power.”

“Perma Red intertwines land and people with the invisible forces of society, nature, and what may exist beyond that, using exquisite sentences that turn into page after page of unforgettable rhythm.”