Shadow tag is the family’s game, a collaborative effort to obliterate someone’s shadow. The person or person to lose their shadow permanently could be any of the five members: the paterfamilias Gil, who is a well-respected artist; his wife Irene, unable to forge a career; and their beautifully crafted (even adorable) children. Their son Florian is a young math genius, their daughter Riel mindfully prepares for the apocalypse, and the youngest child, Stoney, is still enamored of his stuffed animals. Even the two dogs, though indistinguishable, weave seamlessly into the narrative. All the characters are mixed race/mixed tribal Native Americans. Their conversations are both brilliant and absorbing, and their arguments telling. Ms. Erdrich is a marvelous writer.
She sets up three points of view–Gil’s, Irene’s, and later Riel’s–to tell the story of a dysfunctional family on the brink of collapse. Gil’s jealousy and physical violence–have already alienated his children and Irene. All too fond of alcohol, always ready to fight back, and an expert in dirty-tricks game-playing, will Irene succeed in restoring this fragile familial ecosystem or shatter it completely?