Winner of the American Book Award, the Reading the West Book Award, and the Western Writers of American Spur Award for Best Novel of the West
Perma Red has no equal. You will be mesmerized by the poetically intimate prose, the realistically graphic details of life on a Montana Indian reservation, and the humor, love and pain you'll experience through these richly drawn, honest characters. As another of Montana's greatest writers, James Welch, put it: Perma Red 'borders on mythic . . . a wonder-filled gift to all.'-Mark Gibbons, NPR
Boldly drawn and passionate.-Louise Erdrich, author of The Sentence
Transcendent, powerful, and has a gravity all its own.-Jamie Ford, Today.com
Spare, tough-minded and big hearted.-USA Today
Dreamy and lyrical, frequently achieving a shimmering beauty.-The Oregonian
A fever of a story, keenly fighting for air and answers.-San Francisco Chronicle
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.-Alan Cheuse, NPR
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.-Seattle Times
Beautifully written . . . Establishes Earling as the literary heir to great American Indian writers such as James Welch and Louise Erdrich.-Minneapolis Star Tribune
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.-Los Angeles Times
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.-Keelin Kane, Next Chapter Books, St. Paul, MN
Earling is a talent to treasure. . . . Beauty lies in [her] writing. Her words are spare, like the landscape and the bleak hearts of those who judge and torment Louise. Her words are sharp, biting, like the snakes that slither through the tale. Her words are honed to bare Louise's wounds.-Billings Gazette
A haunting tale of persecution, brutality and prejudice . . . paint[ing] a powerful picture of man's inhumanity to man-one as dark and uncaring as Montana's midnight landscapes.-Texas Observer
Superb . . . A love story of uncommon depth and power, a love story that is as painful as it is transcendent, a love story in which the lovers . . . are unwilling to diminish themselves in the act of joining together but are equally unable to turn away.-Booklist
Poignant . . . Earling offers first-rate characterizations, and she does an equally fine job portraying tribal life in the Flatland Nation.-Publishers Weekly
Perma Red is a startlingly spiritual novel of the lives and loves and heartbreak on a Montana Indian reservation. The characters, especially the strangely destructive lovers, Louise and Baptiste, are so sharply drawn that they will bring tears to your eyes. And the landscape, the richly detailed backdrop against which these characters play out their roles, adds a dimension that borders on mythic. Debra Magpie Earling is a truly gifted writer, and Perma Red is a wonder-filled gift to all of us.-James Welch, author of Fools Crow
In the deep wells of compassion for her people, and with her stunning eye for the rituals of their existence, Earling reminds us that the greatest writing is always about matters of the human heart.-Larry Brown, author of Joe
Perma Red is a terrific novel, tough-minded, gritty, and powerful . . . rich with stories of such elemental truth that they have the resonance of sacred songs, the lingering effect of legends. I haven't read a novel that affected me this much since I first encountered Leslie Silko's Ceremony.-James Crumley, author of The Last Good Kiss
With Perma Red, Debra Magpie Earling finally steps forward after two decades and delivers a book as permanently beautiful as the Montana landscape itself. I find it hard, if not impossible, to shake Earling's book from my mind. To paraphrase another Big Sky writer, Norman Maclean, I am haunted by words.-David Abrams, author of Fobbit
