The Master Butchers Singing Club

Having survived World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries Eva, the pregnant fiancée of his best friend, killed in action. With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher’s precious knife set, Fidelis sets out for America. In Argus, North Dakota, he builds a business, a home for his family—which includes Eva and four sons—and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town. When the Old World meets the New—in the person of Delphine Watzka—the great adventure of Fidelis’s life begins. Delphine meets Eva and is enchanted. She meets Fidelis, and the ground trembles. These momentous encounters will determine the course of Delphine’s life, and the trajectory of this brilliant novel.

The Master Butchers Singing Club spans the decades from World War I through World War II and beyond to 1954. The novel unfolds its themes of love and death, lightness and gravity, with the eloquent prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling that only a master writer can offer. Creating a fictional world filled with memorable characters that grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature is an impressive achievement, but doing so with the compassion and intelligence, lyrical style and wit, of Louise Erdrich is a gift to readers everywhere.