Future Home of the Living God (2017)

Future Home of the Living God is a dystopian novel and work of speculative fiction by Louise Erdrich first published on November 14, 2017, by HarperCollins. The novel follows 26-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, an Ojibwe woman raised by white parents, who visits her birth mother's reservation just as the United States becomes increasingly totalitarian following a reversal of evolution.

The novel was listed as one of the 100 Notable Books in 2017 by The New York Times Book Review.

Background

Erdrich began writing the novel in 2002 following the signing of the global gag rule by former President George W. Bush. Erdrich stated in an interview with The Handmaid's Tale author Margaret Atwood, "I started Future Home of the Living God sometime after the 2000 U.S. election. I was furious and worried. I saw the results of electing George W. Bush as a disaster for reproductive rights. Sure enough, he began by reinstating the global gag rule, which cuts international funding for contraceptives if abortion is mentioned."

Erdrich resumed writing and revising the novel again in 2016, including cutting 200 pages from the original manuscript, after Donald J. Trump won the 2016 presidential election. Trump stated that one of his first acts would be to re-sign the global gag rule, which would deprive women's health organizations performing abortions of their funding.

Plot summary

Part I

Science says the world is going backward. Humans are no longer evolving; in fact, they are going back. Pregnancy and birth are now a matter concerning the government. A young woman named Cedar Hawk Songmaker finds herself in the very center. The story is told in a first-person narrative from Cedar's perspective. As Cedar is four months pregnant, the book is her writing to her future child, creating what she believes will be a historical record.

Cedar was raised by her adoptive parents, who are described as "Minneapolis Liberals," Glen and Sera, but now she feels the need to meet her Ojibwe family. Cedar struggled previously with not knowing who she was and joined a Catholic Church. Now, she wants her child to feel a greater connection to their Native heritage, so she journeys to her family's reservation to meet them for the first time.

At the reservation, she meets her birth mother, Mary Potts (Sweetie), stepfather, Eddy, and half-sister Mary Potts (Little Mary.) At first, Cedar feels out of place visiting the reservation. She does not necessarily know how to feel about Sweetie and the life they live. Cedar learns about Eddy's manuscript, which is a list of reasons not to kill yourself. Later she sees Glen and Sera's car pull up. The meeting between her two sets of parents is strange for Cedar, and there is an awkwardness in the air. Cedar ends up spending the night at her biological family's house. Before bed, Sweetie and Cedar share a nice moment where Cedar reveals her pregnancy, and Sweetie tells her about her biological father.

Feeling paranoid, Cedar makes several stops to stock up on the way home from the reservation the next day. She first goes to the grocery store, then to withdraw $8,000 she had kept in what she calls an old-fashioned bank account. Making a quick stop, she decides to pick up some baby clothes and toys. Back to her end-of-the-world shopping, then picks up extensive amounts of liquor, bullets, and cigarettes.

Nervous about the future of the world, Cedar is unsure what to do but is willing to risk everything to go to a doctor's appointment and see her child. At the appointment, the doctor says many cryptic things, including: "We've got one." He then tells Cedar they must keep her there, but after sending the technician away, he has Cedar duct tape him to a chair and run out the back way.

At home, while working on her religious newsletter, Zeal, a strange woman appears on Cedar's laptop. She refers to herself as mother and asks Cedar how she is. A few days later, the woman appears yet again. The same day Phil, her baby's father, appears at Cedar's door. He brings news that the government is trying to round up all the pregnant women, and they decide to hide out in Cedar's house. A few days later while out Cedar sees a pregnant woman get taken aggressively by police. Cedar now officially goes into hiding and no longer leaves the house, and Phil leaves to go get supplies. He returns a few days later.

Staying sequestered in the house is difficult for Cedar; mother makes several more appearances, there are many close calls of getting caught, and Phil is gone most of the time. This leads Cedar to try her best to stick firmly to a routine though she is still left with more free time than ideal.

Part II

Cedar is abducted and forced to stay in a dull hospital with other pregnant women. Her assigned roommate, Agnes, has a defiant and aggressive manner. She instructs Cedar to stop taking the vitamins provided by the nurses. Cedar complies, immediately resulting in the shifting of her obscured image of a friendly and caring hospital to its harsh reality: a prison. Soon after she is introduced, Agnes gives birth and leaves without a trace, leaving Cedar clueless about what happened to her.

Agnes is quickly replaced with a new roommate who refuses to speak and has a mysterious manner. Without a name to call her, Cedar refers to her as ‘spider nun' in her diary. Cedar realized that Spider nun did not take her vitamins either, and she spent every night unraveling provided blankets into balls of yarn. This process became a ritual for the two roommates, stealing more blankets, unraveling, and later tying the yarn into long ropes.

After many more nights at the hospital, Sera enters Cedar's hospital room briefly as a nurse. Cedar is overjoyed to see her mother and the two of them become more optimistic regarding their escape plan. Sera, unfortunately, provides Cedar with the devastating news that Phil was the one to turn Cedar into the hospital, though after being tortured for some time.