Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich ( ; born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954) is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indian ...
's debut novel, first published in
1984
Events
January
* January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888.
* January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...
. Erdrich revised and expanded the novel in subsequent 1993 and 2009 editions. The book follows the lives of five interconnected
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
families living on fictional reservations in
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
and
North Dakota
North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, So ...
. The collection of stories in the book spans six decades from the 1930s to the 1980s. ''Love Medicine'' garnered critical praise and won numerous awards, including the 1984
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
reservations of Little No Horse and Hoopdance, and in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
- St.Paul and Fargo. Erdrich employs a non-linear format in ''Love Medicine'', and each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character, using first-person and third-person limited narration.
''Love Medicine'' begins with June Morrissey freezing to death on her way home on
Easter Sunday
Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the ''Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel P ...
, 1981, and ends in 1985, with the reunification of June's former husband, Gerry Nanapush, with June and Gerry's son, Lipsha.Gleason, William. "'Her Laugh An Ace':The Function of Humor in Louise Erdrich's ''Love Medicine''" ''Love Medicine A Casebook,'' edited by Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 115-135 Encapsulated between those two chapters are interrelated stories that proceed in loosely chronological order from 1934 onwards.Erdrich, Louise. ''Love Medicine'', Harper Perennial, 2016 A pair of stories at the midpoint of the novel converge on a single day in the lives of Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre, and Nector Kashpaw, who are involved in a love triangle.
Characters
Family Tree
Rushes Bear (Margaret)Kashpaw
________, _________
, ,
Marie Lazarre=.=.= Nector Kashpaw Eli Kashpaw
____________________, _________________ !
, , , , , !
Patsy Eugene Aurelia , Gordie =.=.=June.....................Gerry
Kashpaw Kashpaw Kashpaw , Kashpaw , Morrissey , Nanapush
Zelda , Lipsha Morrissey
Kashpaw ,
, King Kashpaw =.=.=Lynette
Albertine Johnson ,
King Jr.
Legend
: = = = Traditional Ojibwe Marriage
: ......... Sexual affair or Liaison
: =.=.=. Catholic Marriage
: , Children born from the above unions
: ! Adopted Children
Major Themes
The diversity of critical and theoretical approaches to ''Love Medicine'' reflects the book’s complexity as a meeting site for multiple forms and conventions. The most prominent themes of the novel are those that are relevant to various literatures and discourses, such as contemporary Native American literature, post modernism,
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
,
oral storytelling
Oral storytelling is an ancient and intimate tradition between the storyteller and their audience. The storyteller and the listeners are physically close, often seated together in a circular fashion. The intimacy and connection is deepened by ...
,
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
In the vein of contemporary Native American literatures, many characters in ''Love Medicine'' are in search of an
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
.Owens, Louis. "Erdrich and Dorris's Mixedbloods and Multiple Narratives," ''Love Medicine A Casebook,'' edited by Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 53-66David Treuer identifies "the search for cultural reconnection" as a driving force of Native American fiction, arguing that "self-recovery is achieved through cultural recovery."Treuer, David ''Native American Fiction: A User's Manual'' Graywolf Press, 2006. pp. 29-68 Speaking of her own mixed-blood heritage, Erdrich has explained in an interview that “one of the characteristics of being a mixed blood is searching…all of our searches involve trying to discover where we are from.”
Louis Owens
Louis Dean Owens ( Lompoc July 18, 1948 - Albuquerque, July 25, 2002) was a novelist and scholar who claimed Choctaw, Cherokee, and Irish-American descent. He is known for a series of Native-themed mystery novels and for his contributions to th ...
and Catherine Rainwater have noted that the positionality of Native Americans and writers both coincide on the margins, as people that must observe from the outside.Rainwater, Catherine "Reading Between Worlds: Narrativity in the Fiction of Louise Erdrich" ''Love Medicine A Casebook,'' edited by Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 163-178 Owens states that “the seemingly doomed Indian, or tortured mixed-blood caught between worlds surfaces in Erdrich’s fiction, but such characters tend to disappear behind those other, foregrounded characters who hang on in spite of it all and, like a story teller, weave a fabric of meaning and significance out of the remnants.”
To illustrate Indigenous cultural endurance, Erdrich superimposes
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
mythological narratives and images onto her characters. Owens identifies
Nanabozho
In Anishinaabe ''aadizookaan'' (traditional storytelling), particularly among the Ojibwe, Nanabozho (in syllabics: , ), also known as Nanabush, is a spirit, and figures prominently in their storytelling, including the story of the world's creat ...
, a peripatetic trickster and world-creator, as a key intertextual reference in Erdrich’s text. Owens points to the first chapter of ''Love Medicine'': true to traditional trickster narratives, in the beginning of ''Love Medicine'', June Kashpaw is seen without a home and on the move. If the purpose of telling
Nanabozho
In Anishinaabe ''aadizookaan'' (traditional storytelling), particularly among the Ojibwe, Nanabozho (in syllabics: , ), also known as Nanabush, is a spirit, and figures prominently in their storytelling, including the story of the world's creat ...
stories is to challenge listeners and to obversely remind them of their roots, Owens argues, then the purpose of June’s absence in ''Love Medicine'' is to underscore each character’s enduring place within the tribal community. Furthermore, in Owen's formulation, Just as the trickster transcends time and space, June’s death, which occurs on
Easter Sunday
Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the ''Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel P ...
, disrupts linear Christian time and interweaves it with cyclic/accretive time.
Finally, Owens states that the mythic principle of
Nanabozho
In Anishinaabe ''aadizookaan'' (traditional storytelling), particularly among the Ojibwe, Nanabozho (in syllabics: , ), also known as Nanabush, is a spirit, and figures prominently in their storytelling, including the story of the world's creat ...
is made explicit in the Nanapush family name; the revealed patrilineal link between Gerry Nanapush, a fugitive culture hero seemingly capable of shape shifting, and Lipsha, who always has a few tricks up his sleeve, ensures the transmission and survival of Indigenous values in the text.
Land and Tribal Identity
Meditations on land as a formative and nurturing source of tribal identity feature prominently in ''Love Medicine.''Erdrich, Louise. "Where I Ought To Be: A Writer's Sense Of Place" New York Times Book Review, 28 July 1985, pp 23-24 For example, Uncle Eli, with his deep connections to the land, is described as being healthy and robust in his old age, unlike his senile brother Nector, who grew up off-reservation. The primacy of land finds formal expression in Louise Erdrich’s artistic manifesto, “Where I Ought to Be: A Writer’s Sense of Place.” In it, Erdrich articulates a traditional tribal view of place, where generations of families inhabit the same land, and in doing so, imbue the landscape with history, identity, myth and reality. Erdrich contrasts this relationship with Western culture’s mutable, progressive view of geography: “nothing, not even land, can be counted on to stay the same.”
Western literature
Western literature, also known as European literature, is the literature written in the context of Western culture in the languages of Europe, as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque and Hungarian, an ...
's alienation from place, in Erdrich's view, is marked by the impulse to document change in the face of an ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation. She explains how American Indian writers write from a different position: for them, “the unthinkable has already happened,” and as such, their task is to reconstitute a new birthing place that is capable of “
elling
''Elling'' is a Norwegian Black comedy film directed by Petter Næss. Shot mostly in and around the Norwegian capital Oslo, the film, which was released in 2001, is primarily based on Ingvar Ambjørnsen's novel ''Brødre i blodet'' ("Blood bro ...
the stories of contemporary survivors while protecting and celebrating the cores of cultures left in the wake of the catastrophe.”
Indigenous Humor and Survival
In multiple interviews, Erdrich has commented on the importance of humor as a mechanism for Indigenous survival and resistance. She states: “when it’s survival humor, you learn to laugh at things it’s a different way of looking at the world, very different form the stereotype, the stoic, unflinching Indian standing, looking at the sunset.” William Gleason argues that in ''Love Medicine'', humor works by cropping up at “inappropriate” moments, thereby posing a greater question of belonging. Gleason's examples of out-of-place humor include Nector’s tragicomic death and Gordie’s telling of the Norwegian joke in “The World’s Greatest Fisherman,” as King is heard physically threatening his spouse outside. In light of the historical “unthinkable” perpetrated against Native communities, Gleason quotes from various theorists to point to the regenerative effect of laughter. It is Lipsha’s comical take on the world that allows him to endure heartache and eventually realize that “belonging was a matter of deciding to.” According to Gleason, jokes can also take on an explicitly subversive, if not emancipatory, dimension when they invoke Native American mythology. He identifies
Heyoka
The heyoka (, also spelled "haokah," "heyokha") is a kind of sacred clown in the culture of the Sioux (Lakota and Dakota people) of the Great Plains of North America. The heyoka is a contrarian, jester, and satirist, who speaks, moves and rea ...
, a literally and metaphorically backwards facing contrarian jester, and Nanabhozo, a wisecracking trickster, as two incarnations of pan-Indian characters that thrive on jokes. Various characters selectively exhibit different aspects of
Heyoka
The heyoka (, also spelled "haokah," "heyokha") is a kind of sacred clown in the culture of the Sioux (Lakota and Dakota people) of the Great Plains of North America. The heyoka is a contrarian, jester, and satirist, who speaks, moves and rea ...
and Nanabhozo in the novel: Lipsha complains of his head being “screwed on backwards,” in response to a startling revelation from his grandmother, while Marie employs trickery and dark, aggressive wit to survive in the convent. Gleason argues that laughter isn’t simply a product of Indigenous longevity in ''Love Medicine'', but rather a key component of it.
Home and Belonging
Noting how ''Love Medicine'' ends with the word “home,” and how every character in the novel has a different idea of what home is, Robert Silberman argues that “home is an embattled concept, as ambiguous as June Kashpaw’s motives in attempting her return;”Silberman, Robert. "Opening the Text: ''Love Medicine'' and the Return of the Native American Woman" ''Love Medicine A Casebook,'' edited by Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 136-154 June’s interrupted homecoming is the subtext that haunts the entirety of the novel; simultaneously, her family members each express a desire for a home of their own. While homecoming is a common theme in Native American literatures, Silberman notes that the way ''Love Medicine'' engages with the subject evades easy classification, since home represents freedom for some, but entrapment for others. In his essay,
Greg Sarris
Gregory Michael Sarris (born February 12, 1952) is the Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (since 1992), the Graton Rancheria Endowed Chair in Creative Writing and Native American Studies at Sonoma State University, where he t ...
superimposes such ambiguity and anxiety surrounding homecoming onto moments of his own personal life to explore a possible reading of text that transcends Native borders.Sarris, Greg. "Reading Louise Erdrich: ''Love Medicine'' as Home Medicine" ''Love Medicine A Casebook,'' edited by Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 179-210 Unlike Catherine Rainwater, who views the experience of reading ''Love Medicine'' as a kind of permanent unhoming arising out of irresolvable conflicts between opposing codes, Sarris focuses on Albertine’s return to the reservation and Lipsha’s return to his familial roots to illustrate how his own personal relationship with home is simultaneously made universal and particular through an encounter with text.
Style
Considerable attention has been devoted to the varied genres and forms that Erdrich employs in ''Love Medicine'', and how they interact with each other.Sands, Kathleen M. "'Love Medicine': Voices and Margins" 'Love Medicine'' A Casebook,'' edited by Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 35-42Wong, Hertha D. Sweet. "Louise Erdrich's 'Love Medicine': Narrative Communities and the Short Story Cycle" 'Love Medicine A Casebook'','' edited by Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 85-106Jaskoski, Helen. "From the Time Immemorial: Native American Traditions in Contemporary Short Fiction," ''Love Medicine A Casebook,'' edited by Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 27-34 Kathleen Sands describes ''Love Medicine'' as a metafictional novel that consists of “hard edges, multiple voices, disjointed episodes, erratic tone shifts incomplete memories” that are spliced together in a self-reflexive manner. According to Sands, the novel is concerned as much with the process of storytelling as with the story itself. Hertha D. Sweet Wong, on the other hand, questions whether ''Love Medicine'' can be considered a novel at all. Instead, Wong quotes Robert Luscher’s definition of “the short story sequence”: “a volume of stories, collected and organized by their author, in which the reader successively realizes underlying patterns of coherence.” Yet, Wong argues, even that definition fails to adequately capture the inherent nonlinearity of Native American narratives, which are often multivocal and achronological. Consequently, Wong arrives at a description of ''Love Medicine'' as a “web” of short stories that is “informed by both
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
literary strategies (for instance, multiple narrative voices) and
oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985) ...
s(such as a storyteller’s use or repetition, recurrent development, and associational structure).”
Oral Form
Hertha D. Sweet Wong points to Erdrich's simulation of Indigenous oral forms in her short story "webs" as a key narrative innovation. Wong argues that the egalitarian pluralism that is embedded in Native American oral traditions offers new artistic possibilities for writers of multivocal narratives; what was experienced, under conventional post-modern explanations, as an alienation from both self and society, and the indeterminacy of language, can now be reimagined as a vivacious expression multivocal unity.
Kathleen Sands further refines critical understanding of the oral form in ''Love Medicine'' as a competition between personal narratives: no one voice demonstrates a privileged relationship with the truth, and readers can only catch a glimpse of the real story by “puzzling right along with them he personal narrativesto the end.”Sands, Kathleen M. "''Love Medicine'': Voices and Margins" 'Love Medicine A Casebook'','' edited by Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 35-42 Sands writes, “the source of her rdrich’sstory telling technique is the secular anecdotal narrative process of community
gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others; the act is also known as dishing or tattling.
Gossip is a topic of research in evolutionary psychology, which has found gossip to be an important means ...
, the storytelling sanction toward proper behavior that works so effectively in Indian communities to identify membership in the group and ensure survival of group values and its valued individuals
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others; the act is also known as dishing or tattling.
Gossip is a topic of research in evolutionary psychology, which has found gossip to be an important means ...
affirms identity, provides information, and binds the absent to the family and the community.”
On a contrasting note, citing a bias towards culturalism in the textual critiques of Hertha Sweet Wong and
Paula Gunn Allen
Paula Gunn Allen (October 24, 1939 – May 29, 2008) was a Native American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's p ...
, Ojibwe writer and literary critic David Treuer cautions against imposing unqualified notions of Native American "polyvocality" and narrative egalitarianism on the text of ''Love Medicine.'' Treuer argues that the what readers experience as "polyvocality" is actually a proliferation of personal symbols, and that on the level of language, all the narrators of ''Love Medicine,'' in fact, inhabit the same consciousness. Treuer points to a tension between the "language of event," marked by stark naturalism, and the "language of thought," marked by rich symbolism and metaphors, and how all the chapters of ''Love Medicine'' "use a mixture of fact and fancy, a mixture of the figure and the figurative, to create its tensions and to resolve them." Thus, according to Treuer, ''Love Medicine'' is a product of literary techniques that derive predominantly from
Western Fiction
Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 20th century and ...
. Examining the opening chapter of ''Love Medicine'', Treuer notes that beyond surface similarities, there is little that ties the text to well known
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
Wenabozaho narratives. Treuer takes pain to note that he is not advocating for an understanding of ''Love Medicine'' that is devoid of Indigenous cultural context; to the contrary, Treuer argues, Erdrich's genius is in summoning an "idea of [
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
] culture," and expressing Indigenous yearning for such culture, in a literary environment that is not its own.
Genres and Literary Traditions
For Helen Jaskoski, the “Saint Marie” chapter is notable for its reflexive use of
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
and
fairytale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cul ...
allusions. An embodiment of winter starvation, the Windigo can take possession of human souls and cause cannibalistic cravings. In many stories the “ Windigo meets defeat at the hands of a child who must become the Windigo herself in order to defeat the monster.” Jaskoski points to several passages of “Saint Marie” where Marie demonstrates childlike intimacy with a supernatural being reminiscent of the Windigo, who is then metaphorically linked to Satan. Fittingly, in effort to counter Marie’s intimacy with the devil, Sister Leopolda is seen variously hurling her "lance" and attempting to kick Marie into an oven, actions that, according to Jaskoski, are reminiscent of
chivalric
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours were governed b ...
legend and
fairytales
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cult ...
such as “
Hansel and Gretel
"Hansel and Gretel" (; german: Hänsel und Gretel ) is a German fairy tale collected by the German Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 in ''Grimm's Fairy Tales'' (KHM 15). It is also known as Little Step Brother and Little Step Sister.
Hansel ...
,” respectively. When Marie enters the convent, Jaskoski argues, she is the child that becomes the Windigo herself. She achieves symbolic victory over sister Leopolda when she catches a sense of the pitiful person at the core of Leopolda’s persona, much like when the vanquishing heroines of Windigo stories discover a person hidden inside the monster’s icy shell.
Robert Silberman redirects critique of Love Medicine back to Western Literary traditions, noting that at the end of the day, ''Love Medicine'' is printed and marketed as a novel. He writes: "the return to the literary is inevitable." Silberman and Catherine Rainwater both discuss how ''Love Medicine'' rises out of the Western
family saga
The family saga is a genre of literature which chronicles the lives and doings of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time. In novels (or sometimes sequences of novels) with a serious intent, this is often ...
, and remains heavily indebted to its conventions. Silberman goes a step further and argues that the
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
and naturalness of Erdrich’s characters, as evinced in their colloquialisms and in their first-person present tense narrations, is “as much a construction as the skill at creating a convincing voice that led Hemingway to see in Twain’s
Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884). He is 12 ...
the start of a genuine American literary tradition - an antiliterary, seemingly informal American style.” Erdrich’s “literary antinomianism” has no shortage of precedents, Silberman claims, from
Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...
to
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He contributed to the revitalization of the American short story during the 1980s.
Early life
Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mil ...
.
Interpretative Duality
James Ruppert and Catherine Rainwater argue that Native forms and Western Literary conventions bring with them opposing codes that make two entirely different interpretations of the same text possible. Ruppert and Rainwater cite multiple such examples: for example, it is entirely possible to read Henry Lamartine’s story as either a tragic story about a soldier suffering from
PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...
or a moral story about an
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
warrior who is unable to escape the ghosts of his vanquished enemies. Likewise, Rainwater argues, Gordie’s encounter with June’s ghost is either a drunken hallucination or a metamorphosis of June’s spirit that forces Gordie to confront his past abuses. In Rainwater’s words, this in-between position requires that the reader “consider perceptual frameworks as the important structural principle in both textual and non-textual realms.”
Structure
Regardless of differences in critical and theoretical approaches, many scholars such as Wong, Ownes, and Rainwater agree that there exists an underlying structure that link ''Love Medicine's'' stories together. On an intratextual level, Wong states, there exist many connective devices, from recurring symbolism to coinciding paths. Hertha D. Sweet Wong points out the loosely chiasmic structure of ''Love Medicine'', where symmetrically positioned chapters mirror each other on subject matter. Wong, along with Owens, also notes that on an intertextual level, ''Love Medicine'' represents one component of a series of narrative sequences in the Love Medicine Sequence, with each narrative sequence being assigned its own natural element as a dominant image: Water (''Love Medicine), Air'' (''The Beet Queen''), Earth (''Tracks''), and Fire (''The Bingo Palace''). This thematic scheme has been explained by Erdrich herself in multiple interviews.
Background
While she was enrolled as a graduate student at
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...
, Erdrich penned several short stories and poems and submitted them to publishers. Two of the stories that she penned, titled "Scales" and "The Red Convertible", later became chapters of ''Love Medicine''. After sending both stories off to publishers, she and her then-husband,
Michael Dorris
Michael Anthony Dorris (January 30, 1945 – April 10, 1997) was an American novelist and scholar who was the first Chair of the Native American Studies program at Dartmouth College. His works include the novel '' A Yellow Raft in Blue Water'' ( ...
, discussed merging and expanding upon those two stories which resulted in "The World's Greatest Fisherman", the opening chapter of ''Love Medicine.'' "The World's Greatest Fisherman" proceeded to win the
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
's Nelson Algren Fiction Award. Erdrich and Dorris subsequently discussed expanding upon the characters of Nector, Marie, and Lulu. The short story "Scales", in particular, was inspired by her experience working as a weigher of commercial trucks. In several interviews, Erdrich and her then-husband described their creative relationship as one of primary writer (Erdrich) and editor/contributing writer (Dorris).
Publication History
Critics such as Lorena Stookey have commented on Erdrich's unique view of publication as a means of providing the writer with "temporary storage," instead of a "final word."Stookey, Lorena Laura. ''Louise Erdrich : A Critical Companion''. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999. pp. 29-31 Erdrich has issued two major revisions of ''Love Medicine'': one in 1993 and another 2009. The 1993 edition expanded upon the initial publication with four new chapters and a new section within the chapter entitled "The Beads." Erdrich also made revisions to her language in response to reader reactions to the sexual encounter in "Wild Geese." For the 25th anniversary edition, Erdrich decided to remove two chapters: "Lyman's Luck" and "The Tomahawk Factory." In the author's note, Erdrich reasoned that the two stories "interrupted the flow" of the final pages of the novel.
Reception
''Love Medicine'' has received a handful of awards since it was first published in 1984.Wong, Hertha. "Introduction," ''Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine: A Casebook,'' Edited by Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000 pp. 3-10 Kurup and Wagner-Martin state that ''Love Medicine'' "catapulted rdrichto the front of what Kenneth Lincoln describes as the 'Native American Renaissance' ..Lincoln ..suggested that she stands alongside the greats of American letters." In 1984, ''Love Medicine'' received the
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".American Academy and Institute of Arts and the Virginia McCormick Scully Award. In the following year, it went on to receive the LA Times Award for Fiction, the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and the Great Lakes Association Award for best work of fiction. Marco Potales of the
NY Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
praised the book, stating " ..this is a notable, impressive book of first fiction: the unique evocation of a culture in severe social ruin, yet still aglow with the privilege and power of access to the spirit-world."
Further reading
* Maristuen-Rodakowski, Julie et al. ''Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine: A Casebook,'' Ed. Hertha D. Sweet Wong. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000
* Treuer, David, ''Native American Fiction: A User's Manual'', Graywolf Press, 2006.