The Mighty Red

Longlisted for the 2025 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction

'A sweeping, tender-hearted epic' Harper's Bazaar

'In the hands of this master storyteller, everything is effortlessly connected. . . Erdrich always finds hope' Oprah Daily

'The Mighty Red might just be a new American classic' Bookpage

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 can't 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, Kismet's mother, hauls sugar beets for Gary's 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.