One of my favorite authors, Louise Erdrich creates characters that I have absolutely no identity with, but for whom I have total compassion and fascination. Her stories always remind me that there are all sorts of people who make up the world, and they all do not think or behave as I do. Thank goodness for that! ( )

My latest read is The Beet Queen, by Louise Erdrich, a unique tale, and I must honestly say that I'm not sure how I feel about it.

It starts out by introducing us to Adelaide, a "kept woman," who has three children to a married man. When this man suddenly dies, it is a catastrophe for her, and one day she abandons her three children in a most unusual and surreal way. Those children, Karl, Mary, and a baby boy, end up going three separate ways.
So, in the beginning, anything can happen to these three children; the future is full of both danger and potential. Because of the way they were abandoned, I expected the rest of the story to be something akin to a folktale, such as Water for Chocolate, but I was wrong. The story is told by several characters in turn, and all of them are people who have made very strange decisions in their lives. Actually, I felt that both Karl and Mary were released into the world to become blights on other people's lives, causing heartbreak, jealousy, and animosity.
In the end, though, that might have been the point: relationships are emotional, sometimes painfully so, but somehow, people stick together and live with all the feelings, good and bad. They also seek out whatever family they have, so that they can subject them to these feelings without relenting. In fact, near the end of this book, there's a long-suffering dying woman who would really like to not have the company of Mary and Celestine (an old friend-turned-relative), and winds up retreating to her late husband's rec room, where she starts sleeping on the pool table. Now, that's a novel idea: a bed with pockets in every corner, so you don't have to get up for anything!
At the end, I thought that maybe Adelaide's granddaughter was going to escape in the same way she did, but--that's not to be. And so it ends on a happy note, with at least one person realizing that someone desperately loves her.

Louise Erdrich has created some mighty interesting characters for this novel, and also wrote a few very funny scenes. And I kept reading, despite the fact that I had no idea where this story was headed. Erdrich is a talented writer and I might read some of her other books in the future. ( )

From Library Journal
The power and virtuosity of Love Medicine ( LJ 10/1/84) are again evident in Erdrich's second, more ambitious novel. Its action spans 40 years, starting in 1932, when three fatherless children are abandoned by their mother as well. Eleven-year-old Mary seeks haven for the family with Aunt Fritzie Kozka; but the baby is kidnapped; 14-year-old Karl, a drifter and dreamer, lights off alone; and only practical, hardheaded Mary takes root. Bizarre coincidences, taut blood tangles, and surreal fantasies challenge the ordinary as relationships bloom and wilt, including one between homosexual Karl, who moves in and out of the action, and Mary's best friend, with whom he fathers a child. At times the shifting voices strain continuity, yet Erdrich's brilliance is such that we believe deeply in her people, are dazzled by her words. An engrossing and breathtaking novel. Elise Chase, Forbes Lib., Northampton, Mass.

The Beet Queen is a story about love. But not necessarily good love. It's about needing to be needed. It's about flawed characters loving each other in flawed ways.

The story begins with Mary and Karl Adare, whose mother quite literally got in a plane and flew away for good, reaching Argus, South Dakota by train during the Great Depression. Mary arrives with a fierce need for a survival and a willingness to make herself absolutely indispensible to her aunt and uncle to achieve that end. Within a few moments of their arriving in Argus, Karl is frightened by a barking dog and flees back to the train. From there, Mary and Karl's lives proceed in vastly different directions but ones that also bind them together for life. Mary inserts herself into life in Argus with an overbearing force that will define her entire life. Karl's life is marked by a rootlessness that sees him becoming a traveling salesman later in life.

Various characters play a significant part in the story including Mary's ambitious and eventually unhinged cousin Sita; Celestine, the best friend that Mary steals from Sita; and Wallace Pfef, a pillar of the Argus community who is unwittingly drawn into Mary, Celestine, and Karl's very unusual "family." What little that can be considered plot in this book revolves around Celestine and Karl's daughter, Wallacette nicknamed Dot, who was born on Wallace Pfef's couch during a fierce winter blizzard. Each of the characters tries misguidedly to give Dot the love that was missing from each of their lives - Mary by giving in to her every whim and being her confidant, Karl by sending oddball gifts from whereever he happens to be selling something at the time, and Wallace by attempting to win Dot's love through the staging of parties and events that should be the stuff of dreams but turn into the stuff of nightmares. Each character reveals his or her own selfishness through the love they shower on Dot eventually bequeathing her their own worst character traits and making Dot into a completely insufferable person. Erdrich reveals each one's desires, failings, and in essence, their humanity in their relations to Dot. While these characters aren't all that lovable, it's not difficult to see how grounded in reality they are.

For as I am standing there I look closer into the grandstand and see that there is someone waiting. It is my mother, and all at once I cannot stop seeing her. Her skin is rough. Her whole face seems magnetized, like ore. Her deep brown eyes are circled with dark skin, but full of eagerness. In her eyes I see the force of her love. It is bulky and hard to carry, like a package that keeps untying. It is like this dress that no excuse accounts for. It is embarrassing. I walk to her, drawn by her, unable to help myself.

This book is primarily about its characters. If you're looking for a quick moving plot or even a linear one, this book is not for you. The book is more of a "slice" of these characters lives, opening windows to the most vital parts. The bouncing between narrators and events gives the feeling of interconnected short stories instead of an entire cohesive novel. The individual stories are absorbing, but I couldn't help feeling that I was missing something. I kept waiting for everything to come together in the end, for some of the several narrative threads to resolve themselves but found myself dissatisfied. I enjoyed the writing but by the end had a feeling like that of going to the store, coming back with a lot of stuff, but not what I'd gone for in the first place. The writing is captivating. The characters come to life. The theme is valid. In the end, though, it still feels like there's something missing. ( )

Louise Erdrich once said that her novels fell "together like a quilt, a crazy quilt,", and The Beet Queen is no exception. The story begins in 1932, with the orphaned young Mary and Karl Adare getting off a train in Argus, North Dakota . A threatening dog sends Karl running back to the train. Mary runs in the other direction, towards her aunt's house. Their lives literally take different paths at that point. Mary grows up as the despised cousin of lovely Sita and the foster daughter of Pete and Fritzie who own a butcher shop. Karl eventually ends up back in Minnesota, to grow up in a Catholic children's home. The people who know them, add their voices to weave a story that goes beyond Karl and Mary to include the entire town of Argus. Spanning forty years, the novel chronicles changes, not only within the characters, but in the town and the times in general. Erdrich has constructed a powerful novel out of many voices and individual stories. ( )