"It has been 25 years since Louise Erdrich published the first of her vibrant novels -- or was that really a novel in the first place? Love Medicine, set on a Chippewa reservation in North Dakota, was told from a number of perspectives over many years, and some critics argued at the time that it was more properly described as a collection of stories. But Erdrich's use of multiple narrative voices has been, from the beginning, a fruitful choice. Besides, she hardly invented the concept of multiple narrative voices; her literary kinship with Faulkner in particular is apparent. Erdrich -- of mixed ancestry including German, Chippewa and French forebears -- has over the years created a Midwestern territory situated somewhere between the borders of realism and fanciful mythopoeticism. Hers is a place where Native and immigrant Americans live in uneasy proximity, where a single voice or angle of vision can't begin to reconstruct the whole tale, where characters make cameo appearances in multiple novels rather than play the starring role. You can call her slicing up of the story "postmodern" -- many have -- but Erdrich is a true original, and labels won't do justice to the oddness, wit and ferocity of her fiction.

Now she has gathered a few new stories and many previously published as chapters in novels into a single volume that makes her work seem more modular than ever. Most of the pieces in The Red Convertible stand perfectly well on their own and resonate, in this arrangement, in new ways. If multiple voices seemed particularly apt 25 years ago, the recycling here is downright inspired. Short stories have a special punch, and though this is a long collection, many of these stories have that power.

Erdrich's North Dakota and Minnesota settings, on and off the reservation, yield rich anthropological and political themes (the first story, "The Red Convertible," concerns a young Indian back from Vietnam). The myths and traditions of a people, whether Chippewa or German, inform the rich cadences of her storytelling. Short stories also enable her to concentrate on individuals and the singular pain that comes from poverty or alcoholism or sexual despair."

Get the Story:
Medicine Woman (The Washington Post 1/25)

Related Stories:
Review: Raw power in Erdrich's 'Red Convertible' (1/12)
Review: 'The Red Convertible' from Louise Erdrich (1/6)