Erik the Red is a fictional account of the life of the eponymous Erik Thorvaldsson, a medieval Norse explorer. Erik is portrayed as a hot-tempered young man and follows his life until his death. Other prominent characters include Erik’s wife as well as his best friend/slave, Tyrkir.
In the beginning, Erik appears to be a good guy that bad things happen to, and he and his family suffer for it as he is banished once from Norway and again from Iceland. This second banishment leads to him heading west to look for lands in which he will not feel persecuted.
This book looks at Nordic history at a particularly turbulent time: the conversion of the Norse from the deities of the Thor/Odin pantheon to Christianity. Erik remains steadfastly faithful to his Norse gods, but his wife converts and establishes the first church in Greenland.
This was definitely a character-driven book with little plot that doesn’t follow Erik’s timeline. I would not particularly call it a young adult book as there is little emphasis on the trials and tribulations of a young Erik, though we do follow his progress from being a rather young man to his settling down some after an accident. There are also a couple of issues that may move this from the YA category. There is an underlying yearning between Erik’s wife and his best friend that apparently Erik never picked up on. There is also his illegitimate daughter, Freydis, who tries to entice her older brother into an incestuous affair. She also kills a slave and attempts to murder Leif’s illegitimate son.
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Erik the Red is available through:
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You can find my review of Röehrig’s Robin Hood—The Shadows of Sherwood Forest here.
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