Louise Erdrich

In Love Medicine we meet people whose ancestors and descendants will populate so many of Erdrich's novels--the intertwined families of Nanapush, Pillager, Kashpaw and Lamartine, among others, including the nuns from the convent "up the hill". It's a story lover's dream, and a genealogist's Rubik's cube. It hits all my Faulkner buttons, too. The stories in this book are just pieces of the saga, and the big picture will never come clear until all the rest of the parts have been revealed, and show more shuffled around by one character and then another. I suppose this puts some readers off, but it’s the kind of thing that I just love. I give it 4 stars and a hug. show less

Omakayas' story begins in spring, as her family moves from their cedar cabin to their birchbark home, on the island in Lake Superior. Omakayas looks up to and envies her older sister Angeline, is annoyed by her younger brother Pinch, and adores her baby brother, who she calls "chickadee." Close third person narration follows an eventful year in Omakayas' life, during which the family's work, dwelling, daily life, and diet changes with the seasons. Omakayas encounters bear cubs, makes friends show more with a crow (Andeg), and helps with chores. A white visitor to a village dance, however, brings an invisible, unwelcome guest: smallpox. The disease sweeps through the village, and despite precautions, several people die, and Omakayas grieves - and slowly returns to life, and discovers her purpose as a healer.

Omakayas is a close observer, and there are beautiful descriptions of the natural world throughout - plants, animals, weather, water. Her life is entirely normal to her, making the unfamiliar accessible to the reader; a few overheard conversations about the westward expansion of the whites and peeks of the missionary school hint at the fate of the Ojibwe, but Omakayas is, for now, shielded from that knowledge.

Back matter includes Author's Note on the Ojibwa Language, Glossary and Pronunciation Guide of Ojibwa Terms

See also: Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park, Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean

Quotes

"We have to stop somewhere, someday. West is where the spirits of the dead walk. If the whites keep chasing us west, we'll end up in the land of the spirits."
"I have dreamed that's where they want us to go, anyway. That will please them."
"They are like greedy children. Nothing will ever please them for long."
"Not until they have it all...
Before they were born, before they came into this world, the [white people] must have starved as ghosts. They are infinitely hungry." (Fishtail, Albert, and Deydey, 79-80)

"Anishaa. We're very small, just human." (Nokomis' prayer, 101)

"Take their ways if you need them, but don't forget your own. You are Anishinabe." (Grandma to Angeline, 110)

...she couldn't help being just who she was. Omakayas, in this skin, in this place, in this time. Nobody else. No matter what, she wouldn't ever be another person or really know the thoughts of anyone but her own self. (220) show less

Nowhere on my edition of the book is it called a novel except in a blurb from a review. These are loosely connected stories that had a feeling of oral story-telling to them, passed down from one to another, with sharply drawn but not fully-developed characters and implications one only realizes later on. Erdrich is unsentimental but always compassionate toward life on the Indian reservation and its inhabitants. It's hard and brutal and there is not much joy or hope to be found. I did not, show more however, find this a bleak read, due in large part to Erdrich's eye for the absurd and her empathetic portrayal of these men and women. Some of the stories made me laugh and some brought tears to my eyes, but throughout, I reveled in the powerful prose. show less

Like most of Erdrich's books, LaRose keeps a foot in two worlds, western and Ojibwe, Catholic and Midewiwin, living and dead, stoned and sober, self-destructive and healing. The book centers on the lives of two of its youngest, LaRose, whose name connects him to five generations of ancestors, and Maggie, also led to hold her family together with a wisdom far beyond her years. Her wildness is reminiscent of a young Fleur Pillager. Around these two, the lives of parents, siblings, relatives, show more even the Rez priest, are in various stages of fracturing and healing. There is a tremendous amount of hope by the end but it is a hope that has been hard earned. show less