BOOKPATHS

North Dakota, U.S.

John Freeman interviews Louise Erdrich, whose latest novel, The Plague of Doves, “is about memory itself.”

“’I knew this particular incident was going to be part of it,’ she says. ‘I just didn't know how I was going to approach it.’ The incident Erdrich refers to was a brutal one. On 13 November 1897, a mob of 40 men broke into a North Dakota jail and lynched three American Indians – two young boys (one of whom was named Paul Holy Track) and a grown man – who were among a group being tried for the murders of six members of a white family. The Plague of Doves brilliantly reimagines this event, bringing to life an entire fictional North Dakota community and tracking how the crime filters down through subsequent generations.” – from “Louise Erdrich: Secrets in the Indian File,” by Louise Erdrich, The Independent

Wahpeton, North Dakota

In August’s Smithsonian, Louise Erdrich writes about growing up in Wahpeton, North Dakota. A “web only” interview with Erdrich can be found on their website.

“Wahpeton, my hometown, is one of the great pieces of luck in my life – I’ve had the privilege of watching it grow and change for 51 years.” – from “A Writer’s Beginnings", by Louise Erdrich, Smithsonian

North Dakota and Minnesota

“The road had two trails, parallel and slender. This was the path she had been looking for, the one she wanted. The man who had stolen her trees took this same way. She followed in his tracks.” – from Four Souls, by Louise Erdrich

Four Souls, by Louise Erdrich (New York : Harper Perennial, 2005; hardback 2004)

“She thought revenge was behind that door, and satisfaction. Maybe she began to realize that she was wrong. There was only time. For what is a man, what are we all, but bits of time caught for a moment in a tangle of blood, bones, skin, and brain? She was time. Mauser was time. I am a sorry bit of time myself. We are time’s containers. Time pours into us and then pours out again. In between the two pourings we live our destiny.” – from Four Souls, by Louise Erdrich

Four Souls continues the saga that began in Louise Erdrich’s Tracks. Intent on revenge, Fleur Pillager follows the “tracks” of John James Mauser, the man who destroyed the reservation, who had “stolen her trees.” Her quest takes her to his Minneapolis mansion where he lives with his wife, Placide; sister-in-law, Polly Elizabeth; and servants. Fleur accepts a job as laundress and waits for the right moment to kill Mauser. Life doesn’t go as planned; however, and Fleur ends up marrying him and bearing their autistic son. While Fleur gradually softens toward Mauser and befriends Polly Elizabeth, her drinking and melancholy indicate a still tortured soul.

While Four Souls is Fleur Pillager’s story, Nanapush, tribal elder and Fleur’s grandfather; Polly Elizabeth; and Margaret, Nanapush’s wife; are its narrators. Each relates pieces of Fleur’s story while also offering insights into their own lives. Nanapush shares his story with Lulu, Fleur’s daughter, in the hopes she’ll begin to understand and forgive her mother’s desertion. In the process, he reveals his own weaknesses and strengths and both the tensions and joy in his marriage. Polly Elizabeth describes her life before and after she “answered the door to Fleur.” Margaret tells of Fleur’s return to her homeland and the healing she must undergo.

Although much of Four Souls takes place in Minneapolis, the book belongs to Fleur Pillager’s North Dakota Ojibwe homeland. It is revenge for the place she loves that takes her away and where she returns when it’s time to heal and regain the land she’s lost.

Four Souls takes readers deeper into Louise Erdrich’s fictional world. It’s an immensely touching and enriching journey.

“As I purified Fleur, I sang to her. The song of return, the song of Four Souls, the song of her name.” – from Four Souls, by Louise Erdrich

Reading Guide

“Change is chaos and pain. There was no order in our making. This reservation came about in a time of desperation and upon it we will see things occur more desperate yet. When I look at the scope and drift of our history, I see that we have come out of it with something, at least. This scrap of earth. This iskonigan. The leftover. We’ve got this and as long as we can hold on to it we will be some sort of people.” – from Four Souls, by Louise Erdrich

North Dakota

"track – 1 a : detectable evidence…that something has passed"

Tracks, by Louise Erdrich (New York : Henry Holt and Company, hardback 1988; Harper Perennial, reprint 2004)

“There is a story to it the way there is a story to all, never visible while it is happening. Only after, when an old man sits dreaming and talking in his chair, the design springs clear.” -- from Tracks, by Louise Erdrich

Tracks takes place between 1912 and 1924 on the remnants of a Chippewa reservation in North Dakota. Although Tracks was the third book published in Louise Erdrich’s cycle of novels that include Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, The Bingo Palace, Tales of Burning Love, and The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, it’s first chronologically. Through the alternating voices of Nanapush, a wise elder, secure in the old ways, and Pauline, an embittered mixed-blood, pulled between tradition and the Catholic church, Erdrich leaves “tracks” for the remaining novels. With Fleur Pillager at the novel’s center, we enter time and place – epidemics are decimating the tribe, land is being lost, and the old ways and Christianity compete for the souls of the people. Turmoil, unrest, and distrust, pervade the reservation. Tracks is a powerful entry into Erdrich’s North Dakota landscape.

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Reading Guide

“I know this. Land is the only thing that lasts life to life. Money burns like tinder, flows off like water. And as for government promises, the wind is steadier.” – from Tracks, by Louise Erdrich