The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

The Master Butchers Singing Club, Louise Erdrich (3.5)

Oddly, Ms Erdrich’s name and books (this one specifically) have come up twice in the last 3 weeks.  Odd, since I had never heard of her before this time.  Her writing is interesting and unique with colorful characters.  This story is of a German who fought in WWI who immigrates to the US and becomes a butcher in North Dakota.  It follows the family and characters of the town up and through WWII.  I enjoyed this book, though I had a little bit of a hard time with some of the cadence of the book.  A long time was spent on about 5 years timeframe, then the end (10-20 years) was rushed in a few pages.  I also found several personal issues were built up, but then rushed through, which was less satisfying as a reader.  I have since been told that her other books fill in some of this time, and I may have read this out of order.  I can appreciate that, though the book tries to stand on its own and I think it should (or come with a warningJ).  I did learn something from this book.  There was a section concerning German POWs at a prison camp in Minnesota.  I don’t remember hearing about POW camps on US soil!  According to Wikipedia: ‘In the United States, at the end of World War II there were 175 Branch Camps serving 511 Area Camps containing over 425,000 prisoners of war.  The camps were located all over the US but were mostly in the South because of the expense of heating the barracks.  Eventually, every state with the exception of Nevada, North Dakota, and Vermont had POW camps.’  This was quite shocking to me.  There were several in Wisconsin – including ‘Camp Sheboygan’ in the town where I went to grade school.  Maybe they did not teach this in my history classes??