Tracks, Louise
Erdrich’s third novel about the Obijwe Indians of North Dakota, goes
back in time before Love Medicine
and The Beet Queen, setting
families from those books in the years 1912 to 1924. Native Americans
are making a final attempt to hold on to their land against white
encroachment, and it looks like they have a choice between surrender or
starvation.
The story is told by alternate narrators, Nanapush, a tribal elder and
wise man, and Pauline, a half-blood whose embrace of Christianity
becomes an obsessive quest for sainthood. Fleur, a mystic believed to
be a witch who frightens both men and women, figures prominently in
both their narratives. Erdrich makes use of magical realism to mirror
the conflicts within Native society about protecting the old ways. Tracks is a poignant tale of
families torn between attempting to preserve the past and the
regrettable need to accommodate the new reality,
Home
My
reviews
My
friends' reviews