Louise Erdirch's Tracks is the latest in her cycle of novels, which includes the prizewinning best-sellers Love Medicine and The Beet Queen.
Set in North Dakota at the turn of the century, Tracks explores the life of Chippewa community that is being absorbed by the surrounding white world. Through the characters' consciousness, Chippewa legends and beliefs about the supernatural merge with everyday events.
THE WORLD & I reprints the first chapter, "Winter, 1912." The narrator is Nanapush, a tribal elder. The narrative voice in the book alternates between Nanapush and Pauline, a young Indian who converts to Christianity. These two tell the story of the tribe and particularly, the story of Fleur Pillager, a telluric Chippewa woman whose destiny resembles the tribe's.
In "Louise Erdrich Makes Tracks," William Bevis looks at Erdrich's writing career. He compares her unique and memorable characters with those of Faulkner: They are more richly drawn--each new volume adds substantially to their realization. Erdrich's characters and her distinctive prose style have given her the formidable literary reputation she enjoys today.
In "Between two Fires," Louis Owen explores the Native American novel, a genre fast coming into its own. A surprising number of America's best contemporary novelists have Indian ancestry. (Erdrich is of German-American and Chippewa descent and is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa). These writers are examining the shifting identities of the native American in ways that have universal
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