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Mostly Fiction BOOK REVIEWS
 

Louise Erdrich

"The Painted Drum"

(Reviewed by Mary Whipple OCT 30, 2004)

"Some people believe objects absorb something of their owner's essence. I stay clear of that. And yet, when I step near the drum, I swear it sounds. One deep, low, resonant note. I stop dead still, staring at the drum. I hear it, I know I hear it, and yet Sarah Tatro does not."

The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich

When Faye Travers, an estate agent in New Hampshire, inventories the home of John Jewett Tatro at the behest of his niece and heirs, she is aware that Tatro's grandfather was once an Indian agent on an Ojibwe reservation and that his grandmother was Indian. Faye, of Indian heritage herself, is hoping to find some Indian artifacts that can be sold or donated to a museum on behalf of the estate. Sarah Tatro, the niece, is not much interested in "old beadwork and stuff," and she has almost forgotten the old storage room in the attic, but when she opens it, Faye finds a room packed with suitcases containing beadwork, baskets, moccasins and other handwork, a cradleboard, and a beaded footstool—a collection of enormous value.

Neither Faye nor Sarah Tatro notices the drum, at first—three feet in diameter, hollowed out from a single piece of cedar wood and covered by a moose hide. Suddenly, the drum "speaks" to Faye, resonating with a single, deep note which only she hears.

The story of the "Little Girl" drum (with no spoilers here) takes the reader from Faye's life and love story in New Hampshire to an Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota. Bernard Shaawano, the grandson of the man who made the drum, has been contacted by a judge, the nephew of old Nanapush, who informs him that the drum has returned to the reservation.

As Bernard narrates the history of the drum in Part II, he tells the stories of his grandfather and grandmother Anaquot on the reservation, explaining why his grandfather made the drum, what he was memorializing, and how this drum eventually came into the possession of John Jewett Tatro in New Hampshire. The fascinating process by which the drum was made, the ceremonies and traditional beliefs accompanying it, and the traumatic lives and deaths of the Shaawano family over three generations connect the drum and its history with the essence of Ojibwe life and death.

In the third part of the novel, Shawnee, a young girl living in a remote area of the reservation, is left babysitting for her younger brother and baby sister on a bitterly cold night in which they have not enough fuel and no food. Their mother has gone to town for help, but she gets sidetracked drinking, leaving the children alone for several days. The depiction of the lives of the children is heart-rending, and their connection to the "Little Girl Drum" adds another layer of mystery to the drum's "life."

Written with a homey intimacy and honesty, Erdrich brings the reader into the lives of her characters, real people with real faults and real conflicts. Generous in her assessment of their characters, she does not make value judgments about them, showing instead the circumstances which have led them to behave as they do--for better or worse--and how they are all connected through the drum. Nature, which intimately affects the lives and deaths of these characters, is further emphasized through the many symbols and repeating motifs—a field of orb spiders, jewelweed, a dog which escapes its cruel confines, wolves and their mystical connection with mankind. Always, of course, Erdrich conveys Indian spiritual values, even as she depicts their often sad and limited lives.

Tightly organized, with stories spanning three generations and interconnecting three different families—Faye Travers and her mother Elsie, Bernard Shaawano, and Shawnee and her mother Ira— The Painted Drum is a powerful novel which taps into universal feelings and hopes, even as it depicts some of life's most terrible events.

  • Amazon readers rating: from 23 reviews

Read a chapter excerpt from The Painted Drum at HarperCollins.com

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"Four Souls"

(Reviewed by Carisa Richner DEC 19, 2004)

But it crossed my mind that to know others on a superficial level only is a desperate hell and life is worth living only if the veneer is stripped away, the polish, the wax, and we see the true gem of the other no matter how far less than perfect, even ugly, even savage at the heart.

Four Souls by Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich’s newest novel continues her epic saga of the Little No Horse Reservation, which started with Love Medicine and has proceeded through six novels. Four Souls is a wonderful addition to the collection. Although relatively short, it’s rich with imagery, lyrical writing, humor, and a rewarding plot. In it she ties one of the narrative threads left hanging from her recent novel The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, namely, why did Fleur Pillager leave her daughter at a boarding school for ten years, and how did she come back home wearing a white suit and driving a long, white car? Two different narrators, who, interestingly, don’t know the other exists, tell the answer to this question.

The primary story is about Fleur, a Native American woman who seeks revenge against John James Mauser, the man who swindled her out of her land. Polly Elizabeth, the unmarried sister of Mauser’s wife, narrates this portion of the story, and is a fascinating character. She develops from a stereotypical sort of narrow-minded British housekeeper, referring to Fleur as “the savage woman” and remarking that “perhaps it is true that Indians are unintelligible, to the civilized mind at least, as far removed in habit of thought and behavior as wild wolves from bred hounds,” to claiming Fleur as her “sister.” In fact, Erdrich uses Polly Elizabeth to illustrate one of the central themes of this novel. It seems that all of the main characters suffer from being judged based on what they are, rather than who they are, and are guilty of doing the same thing to others. In this novel, Erdrich does not paint in black and white; a character may be innocent and unfairly dealt with in one area, but then turn around and do the same thing to someone else. Polly Elizabeth’s transformation is perhaps the most extreme (she ends up marrying Mauser’s mute manservant), but as the novel progresses, we see each character come to face to face with their own prejudices and see them explode in their face.

The “snare” imagery that Erdrich uses so effectively in describing Fleur’s journey from murder to marriage is also used to describe how her father Nanapush ends up addressing the entire tribe wearing a woman’s dress. Nanapush becomes convinced that his wife Margaret is having an affair with his nemesis, Shesheeb. Consumed with jealousy, he constructs a snare intending to trap Shesheeb, but instead catches Margaret, almost killing her. While being strangled by the wire, she has a vision from her great-grandmother, who instructs her to fashion a dress that, if constructed entirely of elements untouched by white hands, will give great healing powers to its wearer. It is in this dress that Nanapush, as tribal leader, in a speech both eloquent and ribald, speaks to the tribe about a proposed land settlement: “Listen, old fool, I heard the earth tell me. You are walking on my beautiful body. And I allow it not because you are human and not because you are a man but because you were born of a woman. I, the earth, respect a woman’s pain as it is freely given to the service of life...” The tribe decides to reject the offer, hopefully putting an end to both the land swindles of the whites, and the unwise trade of land for small amounts of money that are wasted on, in Margaret’s case at least, linoleum.

Erdrich expertly weaves the two plot lines and various thematic elements together at the end, but I don’t want to give away the ending. This novel is a must read for a reader familiar with any of Erdrich’s previous novels, and a good place to begin for a reader who is not.

  • Amazon readers rating: from 8 reviews

Read a chapter excerpt from Four Souls at HarperCollins.com

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"The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse"

(Reviewed by Carisa Richner DEC 19, 2004)

What is the whole of our existence but the sound of an appalling love?

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich

Spanning most of the twentieth century, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse tells the story of Agnes DeWitt, a former nun who disguises herself as a man in order to serve as a priest on an Indian Reservation in North Dakota. The story is told in the present and as flashback, as Father Damian is being interviewed by another priest, sent by the Vatican to investigate whether the claims that Sister Leopolda, a parish nun, is indeed a candidate for sainthood. In this rich and detailed story, Erdrich explores love in all its forms: the love of the divine for us, love within marriage, illicit love, and even the love between a mother and child.

The story of Agnes’s transformation from a nun to a priest begins with Agnes walking away from her convent after becoming overwhelmed, almost taken over, by music. Her love of music has replaced her love for God. She stumbles into the barn of a German farmer, where she lives happily until a bank robber, who has taken Agnes hostage, kills him. In her grief a priest visits her, the original Father Damian Modeste, who tells her that he is enroute to the north to “missionize Indians.” Unfortunately, he is killed in a flood that sweeps the Red River Valley. By a stroke of luck, Agnes finds his body, buries him, and assumes his identity. The nuns at the mission do not question her gender, and she begins her life as a man. In a humorous aside, she composes a list of “Rules to Assist in My Transformation” which include “Make requests in the form of orders,” and “Admire women’s handiwork with copious amazement.”

Although most people believe she is a man, some see through her disguise, including Sister Leopolda, who later in the novel threatens to expose her to the papal authorities if Agnes exposes the truth about her. Agnes enters into this agreement, afraid that once her true identity is revealed, her work as a priest will become undone, leaving couples unmarried, babies unbaptized, and sin unforgiven. Of course, this leaves Agnes in an ethical dilemma: is it right for a guilty person to go unpunished with Agnes’s secret safe, or should the guilty be caught and her illusion exposed with Agnes losing ability to do God’s work on the reservation among people she truly loves? What Agnes doesn’t deal with is the question contained within her fear, namely are people truly baptized or married or absolved when a female priest is performing the sacrament? Is the stricture of the Catholic Church that priests be male just a man-made requirement, or is it truly ordained by God, in which case isn’t Agnes’s fear already realized?

Erdrich introduces her theme of illicit love with the arrival of Father Gregory, a priest sent to help Agnes with her duties. He is attracted to her and alarmed and ashamed because of it. Her secret is revealed, however, and they fall in love, only to be faced with a choice when the church authorities call him to his own parish (after they receive a letter from Agnes asking that Gregory be moved away). Gregory offers to give up the priesthood, and marry Agnes, but she refuses. She is wedded to her identity as a priest, and cannot disavow her calling and abandon what have become her people.

While the story of Agnes’ transformation and subsequent priesthood could constitute the subject of a satisfying novel on its own, Erdrich introduces a secondary storyline that centers on Pauline Puyat, or Sister Leopolda. Certain miraculous healings and interventions are attributed to her, and a priest, Father Jude, is dispatched to verify these happenings, as the first stage in the canonization process. Pauline’s story is as fascinating as Agnes’, and includes a bit of a murder mystery. Ironically, by the end of the novel, Father Jude realizes that there have indeed been miraculous happenings at Little No Horse, but that the source is not Sister Leopolda, but Father Damian.

Readers familiar with Erdich’s previous books will meet some familiar characters while learning about Pauline. She fills in some gaps left in the on-going lore of the Kashpaw, Pillager, Morrissey and Lazarre families started in Love Medicine, and continuing through The Beet Queen, The Bingo Palace, Tales of Burning Love and The Antelope Wife. Some of these plot lines provide comic relief, while others teach us the reality of life on an Indian Reservation in the twenties and thirties. However, readers do not have to be “up” on the stories of these families to enjoy this novel; this novel stands beautifully on its own. It is a novel that speaks eloquently on issues of faith, miracles, identity and truth, while still telling us a really good story.

  • Amazon readers rating: from 43 reviews

Read an excerpt from The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse at HarperCollins.com

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"The Master Butchers Singing Club"

(Reviewed by April Chase MAR 03, 2003)

Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

Award-winning author Louise Erdrich is back with another truly great book. It is the story of Delphine Watzka, Fidelis Waldvogel and their lives in Argus, North Dakota, a fictional town featured in several of Erdrich's works. Delphine is a hometown girl, the daughter of the town drunk, Roy. Fidelis, a German immigrant, arrives in Argus broke, and finds work in his trade as a master butcher, fully intending to move on as soon as he earns enough money.

Read excerptThe Master Butchers Singing Club is about everyday life, and the amazing things that often happen to ordinary people. Parts are quite funny, albeit in a bittersweet way, and parts are so sad they will leave you dripping tears on the pages. (You will want to go grab a tissue, but you won't be able to put the book down to do so.) This book is a National Book Award Finalist, and seems to be moving steadily up the bestseller lists - and deservedly so.

Needless to say, Fidelis never leaves Argus, and Delphine, after a brief career as a vaudeville performer, returns. Their lives intertwine in strange and mysterious ways, as the lives of people in small towns do. Delphine is befriended by Fidelis's wife, Eva, who seems like the mother she never had, representing all that is domestic and homey. In Eva's big, clean-scrubbed yellow kitchen, Delphine finds peace. She also finds a job, working in the butcher shop and helping Eva with her four strapping boys. But Eva is not well, and in time, Delphine becomes her nurse, caring for her friend as she dies of cancer.

The serenity and orderliness of Eva's house and the obvious love between her and Fidelis is a striking contrast to Delphine's home life and her sham marriage to Cyprian, her strikingly handsome partner in the vaudeville act. Her "husband" does not seem to desire her physically, which puzzles her until she stumbles upon him one night in the arms of another man. Still, he is a good friend and faithful helper, and their mutual dependence keeps them together. Like many couples, they stay with each other through force of habit, because it is easier than splitting up. Delphine hopes against hope that perhaps, somehow, he will change…but deep down, she knows that is not likely.

When Delphine and Cyprian return to Argus, her father Roy is in terrible shape, in a constant drunken stupor and living in unbelievably filthy squalor. They take it upon themselves to clean out his stench-ridden house, and become embroiled in a crime investigation that prevents them from leaving town when they discover, down in the basement, the terrible reason for the smell. The horror they find, and their enforced presence in Argus, creates another bond between them, unnaturally prolonging the failing relationship.

"Delphine witnessed awful things occurring to other humans. Worse than that, she was powerless to alter their fate. It would be that way all her life - disasters, falling like chairs all around her, falling so close they disarranged her hair, but not touching her," writes Erdrich. Drunkenness, illness, poverty, pain, thwarted love, unrealized ambitions - in short, suffering of all types - rage around her throughout the book, and though she suffers too, she emerges unscathed, while others fall by the wayside.

Fidelis, likewise, is a serious soul. A German Army sniper in World War I, he is haunted by the eyes of the many men he picked off. He marries Eva, the lover of his best friend who was killed in the war, so that her child will have a father. He finds that "in spite of the dead weight of killed souls and what he'd learned in the past three years about the monstrous ground of existence and his own murderous efficiency, he was meant to love." His marriage to Eva is happy and prosperous, and her death leaves him helpless, disoriented. His spinster sister comes to live with him, but she doesn't know how to take care of his boys, and his customers don't like her. Finally, he pleads with Delphine to return as his employee, to watch the boys and work in the shop.

For most of the book, Delphine and Fidelis exist in close contact, working together; friends, in a distant fashion, mainly because of Eva and the four boys. But from the first moment Delphine lays eyes on him, it is clear that there will be more to the story:

"Before she met him, she sensed him, like a surge of electric power in the air when the clouds are low and lightning bounds across the earth. Then she felt a heaviness. A field of gravity moved through her body. She tried to rise, to shake the feeling, when he suddenly filled the doorway. Then he entered, and filled the room."

Shocked by her reaction, Delphine resolves to ignore his existence - after all, this is her best friend's husband! - and studiously follows through, barely acknowledging his presence on earth, even after Eva's death, and even in the face of Eva's dying plea for her to marry him and raise her sons. Predictably, the two finally do marry, but it is a marriage of convenience and fondness, necessitated by economic need and the needs of the boys, rather than heated passion that we might have expected. It is "like a rug to sleep beneath instead of a goosedown quilt. It was a love full of everyday business, full of selling and killing and hemming pants. They slept heavily, deeply, and probably both snored."

By rights, The Master Butchers Singing Club should be boring. It's just a story about a little town like any other in Middle America. But anyone who has lived in a small town (and city neighborhoods are very much like little towns of their own, in the midst of the larger urban sprawl) knows that they are really not dull at all. No story is quite as interesting as our own, and just about everyone will see similarities to their own towns and lives here, for all the archetypes of small town America are included: the town drunk, the crazy lady, the gossip, the poor kid, the rich banker. The tragedy and comedy, quirks and foibles and deep secrets of Erdrich's characters are as familiar and believable as that lady down the street, or the great-aunt nobody talks about much. The underlying themes, likewise, are universal: wars, draughts, poverty, hard work, loss and death; but also hope, love, persistence, making peace with destiny, accepting yourself, your family and your town for what they are. As Delphine finds, "Her ambition to leave faded and a kind of contentment set in. She hadn't exactly feared the word contentment, but had always associated it with a vague sense of failure. To be discontented had always seemed much richer a thing. To be restless, striving. That view was romantic. In truth, she was finding out, life was better lived in a tranquil pattern."

  • Amazon readers rating: from 86 reviews

Read a chapter excerpt from Master Butchers Singing Club at MostlyFiction.com

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"The Bingo Palace"

(Reviewed by Judi Clark AUG 31, 1999)

The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich

Lipsha Morrissey, what can his people say about him except, "Who he is is just the habit of who he always was, we warned Marie. If he's not careful, who he'll be is the result." Lipsha is summoned home when his grandmother sends him a copy of his father's Wanted poster. He arrives during the Intertribal song at the winter powwow. He sees his cousin Albertine dancing and then can't help but notice Shawnee Ray. And from this moment on he is consumed with her.

But as pure and hungry as his love seems to be, it is far from simple. The father of Shawnee Ray's son is Lipsha's own uncle-brother Lyman Larmartine. Out of the overpowering goodness of her heart, Zelda Kapshaw took in the pregnant Shawnee Ray and now feels that it is her job to watch out for Shawnee's life. One thing is for sure, Shawnee would be better off marrying Lyman, the reservation's "big cheese" and Zelda sets events in motion to discourage Shawnee's interest in Lipsha. To complicate matters even further, Lyman gives Lipsha a job as a night watchman at his bar/bingo hall/blackjack parlor. So now he is competing with his blood relative and boss. And he comes to discover that Lyman is also hopelessly in love with Shawnee Ray.

Lipsha's legacy is that he was raised by his grandmother Marie Kapshaw, after his own mother, June Morrissey, tried to drown him in the slough as an infant. The fact that he didn't drown is the mystery. June, now dead herself, visits Lipsha one night at the bar. She's decided that she wants the car he bought with her insurance money. In exchange she leaves him some very lucky Bingo cards. Lucky enough that is, to win him a plush new van and lots of cash. But not enough luck to win the girl or to break the habit of getting in harm's way. In the end, we find that it is each of his grandmothers including his great-grandmother that control the events of the bigger picture. We find that not even Zelda is in control but is just one more of the players.

As should be expected with a book called The Bingo Palace, there are many references to chance and luck. Many of the chapter's describe somebody's luck ("Lipsha's Luck," "June's Luck," "Lyman's Luck"). In most cases, the luck is not of the good kind, or if it appears good, it doesn't last. And those with the luck, such as Fleur, are not the one's you want to mess with. The title also has another more obvious context, that of the Indian Gaming Industry as we find out that Lyman Larmartine is working towards building a Bingo Parlor on some undeeded land.

Reading The Bingo Palace is a wonderful experience. Every sentence is a masterpiece, evidence of a poet writing fiction. However, this book requires patience and many sections require re-reads in order to keep track of the many relations and to truly understand the ending. In the end I probably read the book twice, by the time I had gone and back and forth a few times.

Love Medicine, The Beet Queen and Tracks all involve the same three families as The Bingo Palace in the fictional town of Argus, Dakota. These I must read, for now that I have been introduced to these people I want more.

  • Amazon reader rating: from 6 reviews

Read a chapter excerpt for The Bingo Palace at HarperCollins


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Bibliography: (with links to Amazon.com)

With her husband, Michael Dorris:

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About the Author:

Louise ErdrichKaren Louise Erdrich was born in Little Falls, Minnesota in 1954 to a Chippewa mother and a German-American father. As a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe, she grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota, a town near a reservation, where both of her parents were teachers for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

While growing up, her father encouraged her and sisters to write stories by paying a nickel for each story. She was brought up listening to stories by her mother and maternal grandmother. She also credits her interest in writing to the lack of television and movie exposure.

In 1972, Erdrich earned a scholarship to Dartmouth College. This was also the first year the college admitted women and the year the Native American studies department was created. The department was headed up by anthropologist Michael Dorris who later became her collaborator and husband. In 1978 she enrolled in an M.A. program at John Hopkins University where she wrote poems and stories incorporating her heritage. After Erdrich received her master's degree, she returned to Dartmouth as a poet and writer-in-residence. In 1980, Dorris and Erdrich started successfully collaborating and by 1981 they were married. Together they raised six children, the first three were adopted. Sadly, in April 1997, Dorris committed suicide after having separated from Erdrich and allegations of child abuse.

In 1985, The National Books Critics Circle honored her as the year's best novelist. Her novels include the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Love Medicine and the National Book Award finalist The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, as well as poetry, children's books, and a memoir of early motherhood, The Blue Jay's Dance. Her short fiction has won the National Magazine Award and is included in the O. Henry and Best American short-story collections.

She lives in Minnesota with her children, who help her run a small independent bookstore, The Birchbark.
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