The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

• Minneapolis Public Library, USA

What happens when a trained killer discovers, in the aftermath of war, that his true vocation is love? Having survived the kidding fields of World War I, Fidelsi Waldvogel returns home to his quiet German Village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend.
With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher's precious set of knives, Fidelis sets out for America, getting as far as Argus, North Dakota, where he settles. Over the years he works hard, building a business, a home for his family - which now includes Eva and four sons - and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town. The group embraces everyone from the local banker to the town drunk, the sheriff, the other butcher in Argus, and an elusive drifter, part Ojibwe, part French, whose balancing act is a wonder to behold.

What happens when the Old World meets the new - in the person of Delphine Watzka, a daughter of Argus, whose origins are a mystery, even to her - turns out to be one of the great adventures of Fidelis's life. Delphine meets Eva and is enchanted, she meets Fidelis and the ground trembles…
The Master Butchers Singing Club spans the decades from World War I through World War II and beyond to 1954. The novel unfolds its themes of love and death, lightness and gravity, with eloquent power, sly humour and great depths of feeling. It is filled with memorable characters who grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature.

Louise Erdrich grew up in North Dakota and is a mixed blood enrolled in the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe. She is the author of eight novels, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Love Medicine as well as poetry, children's books and a memoir of mothering, The Blue Jay's Dance. She lives in Minnesota with her children, who help her run a small independent bookstore, The Birchbark.