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"  Louise Erdrich writes stories with long roots and remarkable reach, spanning generations of Native Americans and other Midwesterners. Yet it&amp;#039;s her ability to home in on the small, searing exchanges between people that tip their relationship in some new direction\u2014for better or worse\u2014 that amazes the most. Her new novel, Shadow Tag (HarperCollins), revolves around a Minneapolis couple, Gil and Irene, parents of three children\u2014 he a painter, she a historian researching George Catlin, the renowned nineteenth-century portraitist and exploiter of American Indians. Gil, given to smacking the older kids when his temper flares, and Irene, so devoted to her nighttime wine that her six-year-old draws her with glass in hand, are in serious trouble\u2014the initial lust and admiration between them now obscured by Gil&amp;#039;s jealousy of Irene&amp;#039;s motherly devotion. In an attempt to get Gil to leave them, Irene starts writing about invented trysts in a diary she knows he&amp;#039;s reading. The ruse seems a bit far-fetched\u2014 but then there&amp;#039;s Gil, having snuck the diary from the back of a drawer in Irene&amp;#039;s basement office, thinking &amp;quot;he could feel the blood drain from his heart,&amp;quot; so overcome that he seems to be falling apart right there in the room with you. Later, as they&amp;#039;re about to head out to a party, Irene realizes Gil has read her latest entry\u2014one so ridiculously romantic she thought about ripping it out before the wine spurred her on. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m going to be with the handsomest man at the party,&amp;quot; she says brightly, trying to undo the blow she&amp;#039;s already landed. Such moments of sudden, startling emotional apprehension, and the course corrections they produce, push Gil and Irene and their kids closer and further apart by turns. As the family moved toward some resolution\u2014because the status quo clearly could not stand\u2014I kept flipping to Erdrich&amp;#039;s author photo for a clue as to how she created this particularly devastating little world. But her sideways glance and mild smile suggested a woman happy to preserve some mystery, which, I suppose, is a great writer&amp;#039;s prerogative. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/books/reviews/a10863/book-release-shadow-tag-395045/>