The Beginner's Goodbye vs. Round House

The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler vs. Round House by Louise Erdrich

The sweet novel tells The Beginner's Goodbye tells the story of Aaron, who was born with a slight physical handicap.  All his life he has felt coddled by his family.  He works in the family publishing business so he is never far from his relatives.  He has married Dorothy, a doctor he interviewed for one of his books.  They have a comfortable life together but are not truly in love. When Dorothy dies in a freak accident, Aaron must reinvent his life and eventually find love again.

Round House tells the story of Joe Coutts, a Native American boy of 13 whose mother is brutally raped and left for dead.  She survives the attack, and the book is about Joe and his parents' life together afterward.   The identity of the rapist is soon obvious, and much of the narrative is about tribal boundaries and the jurisdiction responsible for prosecuting the crime.  Ms. Erdrich writes an afterword about the high incidence of rape among Native American women, but the story is not a polemic.  The characters ar real and well-drawn.

I enjoyed both novels, but I felt that Round House had more depth.  For thta reason, Round House is the winner.