The Mighty Red

Longlisted for the 2025 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction

A sweeping, tender-hearted epicHarpers Bazaar
In the hands of this master storyteller, everything is effortlessly connected. . . Erdrich always finds hopeOprah Daily
The Mighty Red might just be a new American classicBookpage

In the Red River Valley of North Dakota, a fraught wedding is taking place.

Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe. Gary thinks Kismet is the answer to his problems. Kismet cant imagine her future, but she will settle for fulfilling his. During a clumsy proposal, Kismet misses her chance to say no, and so the die is cast.

Meanwhile Crystal, Kismets mother, hauls sugar beets for Garys wealthy family. On her nightly truck drives from the farm, Crystal frets over what the future might hold - both for herself, and her daughter.

Starkly beautiful and vividly written, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendour, from one of our greatest living writers.