The Red Convertible: Selected and New Stories, 1978-2008 (2009)

I have been infatuated with Louise Erdrich's fiction since I first read Love Medicine back in the 1980's. She continues to cast her spell over me with her latest book, The Red Convertible, a treasury of her short stories. Many of the 36 stories have been incorporated into the Ojibwe world that she writes about in her novels. The chronological arrangement is helpful because it is easy to get lost in the sprawling reach of the Nanapush and Kashpaw clans. I like the portability of Erdrich's characters who move in and out of her tales with ease. Meeting them again in this collection is like catching up with old friends.

For the most part, these are not pretty stories, but they elicit deep emotions that are sometimes projected quietly and sometimes with exuberance. They are filled with the tragedies and lost dreams common to living a harsh life. But they are also filled with hope and beauty as Ms. Erdrich envelops a grim reality with her magical, mystical writing.

I highly recommend this book if you are a fan of Native American literature or if you simply enjoy a well-told story containing some of the loveliest, most poignant passages in modern literature. Caution: Read these almost 500 pages slowly, leaving some contemplation time between narratives, so that you receive the full impact of these affecting stories. ( )

Erdrich’s collection of 36 short stories spans 30 years of her writing career. Most were previously published elsewhere, but the collection also contains 6 new stories. Covering the breadth of her career as they do, the stories reveal the development of her distinct writing style, as well as the evolution of her chosen themes, all set within her own distinctly realistic, though fictional, world. The majority of Erdrich’s characters are Native American, and many of the stories take place on or near an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. Her vivid characters all struggle to endure life’s harshness, while finding small moments of joy and redemption in the quotidian things around them. Those familiar with Erdrich’s novels will rediscover old friends in these stories, and find in some of them the seeds that germinated into those full-length novels. Earthy, spiritual, and utterly mesmerizing, these stories are at once distinct and also part of the same interlocking whole. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys a well-crafted short story! ( )

Let’s hear it for short stories collections! Clap fast and loudly … we might not be seeing them for a while. In these uncertain economic times, publishers will probably table short story collections for the novels of would-be Danielle Steeles or Stephen Kings – the sure-things, the moneymakers. But what if we promise to buy those collections, if they promise to give us more bang for our buck? What if writers and editors put more time into assembling them? Instead of an anemic preface that sounds more like an acknowledgment, what if the collection included a revealing preface in which the author discusses her literary vision, or how she perceives the voices she’s so long conjured? And instead of a mindlessly chronological arrangement, what if the stories were displayed like diamonds in jewelry store – set against a dramatic backdrop of midnight blue and under diminutive lights that catch every facet? If only such care had been taken by Louise Erdrich in The Red Convertible, bruited to be her first-ever collection of stories in a thirty-year career.
For the rest of this review, see the January 2009 edition of Open Letters Monthly Arts and Literature Review: http://openlettersmonthly.com/issue/ ( )