The Novels of Louise Erdrich

An Introduction to Erdrich’s Fiction

Jun 4, 2009 Jeris Swanhorst

Louise Erdrich is the author of twelve novels, including the award-winning 1984 novel Love Medicine.

Louise Erdrich writes nonfiction, children’s books, poetry, and novels. Her twelve novels, including eleven written on her own and one co-authored with Michael Dorris, establish Erdrich as a master storyteller in the world of contemporary American fiction.

Erdrich’s Early Novels: Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and Tracks

Erdrich’s first three novels are about family, identity, survival, and relationships. These are themes that carry through Erdrich’s work. Her first novel, Love Medicine (1984), was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. It is book of interconnected sections that tell the story of two families through multiple generations on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota.

Erdrich’s The Beet Queen (1986) takes place in the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota, near the reservation Erdrich wrote about in Love Medicine. Tracks (1988) also takes place in the same fictional locale Erdrich created in her first two novels. Erdrich’s writing style has often been compared to that of William Faulkner, except for instead of focusing on the South, as Faulkner did, Erdrich writes about the Ojibwe, mixed-blood, and German-Americans of North Dakota.

The 90s: The Crown of Columbus, The Bingo Palace, Tales of Burning Love, and The Antelope Wife

In the 1990s, Erdrich had four new novels published. In 1991, Erdrich and her then husband Michael Dorris published The Crown of Columbus, a novel they wrote together. 1994’s The Bingo Palace picks up with some of the characters from Love Medicine, expanding their stories. Similarly, Tales of Burning Love (1997) also expands the stories of characters from previous novels. The Antelope Wife, Erdrich’s seventh novel, was published in 1998.

In 1993 a “new and expanded version” of Love Medicine was published, which included more sections than the original book. This strengthened the connections among the sections and added even more depth to the novel.

2001-2005: Four New Novels

In 2001, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse was published. It is the story of one of the minor characters from earlier Erdrich novels, and it adds another layer to the fictional Erdrich universe. Some said this was Erdrich’s best book since Love Medicine, and it was a finalist for the National Book Award.

The Master Butchers Singing Club (2003) shifts the focus away from the Ojibwe characters, as was done in The Beet Queen, and centers on a family of German immigrants in the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota. Two more Erdrich novels were published in this five-year span, Four Souls (2004) and The Painted Drum (2005).

The Plague of Doves

Erdrich’s most recent novel, The Plague of Doves (2008), was called “her dazzling masterpiece” by author Philip Roth. It is about an unsolved murder in a small town in North Dakota. Many critics believe it to be Erdrich’s best novel yet, and it was named a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Criticism and Praise

Over the last 25 years, Erdrich has been pulling readers in to her fictional universe. However, while most praise Erdrich for her talent, she has endured some criticism, most notably by Leslie Marmon Silko in a 1986 review of The Beet Queen. In Silko’s review called “Here’s an Odd Artifact for the Fairy-Tale Shelf,” Silko said The Beet Queen was not focused enough on Native concerns but was more caught up in the Postmodern writing style.

The criticism from Silko has been dismissed by many, however, because The Beet Queen is not written about Native characters but rather white German-Americans. Overwhelmingly, critics and readers have embraced Erdrich’s writing, and many consider her twelve novels the work of a masterful storyteller.

Louise Erdrich’s novels are published by Harper Collins Publishers.

The copyright of the article The Novels of Louise Erdrich in American Fiction is owned by Jeris Swanhorst. Permission to republish The Novels of Louise Erdrich in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

The Plague of Doves Book Cover