Future Home Of The Living God

Times are strange. Today I read an article about a prosecutor in West Virginia advising women who have miscarriages to report the incident to the local police. He said he wouldn't prosecute a woman for having a miscarriage but other prosecutors said they would. Did you read and enjoy The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood? If so I think you would enjoy Future Home Of The Living God by Louise Erdrich. The book is similar to The Handmaid's Tale and set in Minnesota. A 26 year old woman named Cedar lives in south Minneapolis. She is Native American and w.as adopted by two white liberal parents and brought up in Minneapolis. She receives a letter from her birth mother on the reservation so she goes up there to visit and to learn more about her culture. She meets her mother, her mother's husband, her grandmother and her little sister. At the end of her visit she tells her native family that she is pregnant. She gets back to Minneapolis only to learn that authorities and asking pregnant women to turn themselves in. The government has turned totalitarian.  Evolution is reversing and births are going wrong. Cedar hides out in her home for a time but eventually gets picked up and taken to Fairview Hospital. Every day the pregnant women are given vitamins which are actually tranquilizers. No one knows what happens to the women or their children but they are never seen again. With the help of her mother and her roommate Cedar escapes the hospital and heads back up to the reservation to hide. Eventually Cedar gets picked up again and this time she is taken to Stillwater Prison where her future is even worse. The book is disturbing but beautifully written.