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Summary
Author Notes
Karen Louise Erdrich was born on June 7, 1954 in Little Falls, Minnesota. Erdrich grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota, where both of her parents were employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. Erdrich graduated from Dartmouth College in 1976 with an AB degree, and she received a Master of Arts in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University in 1979.
Erdrich published a number of poems and short stories from 1978 to 1982. In 1981 she married author and anthropologist Michael Dorris, and together they published The World's Greatest Fisherman, which won the Nelson Algren Award in 1982. In 1984 she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Love Medicine, which is an expansion of a story that she had co-written with Dorris. Love Medicine was also awarded the Virginia McCormick Scully Prize (1984), the Sue Kaufman Prize (1985) and the Los Angeles Times Award for best novel (1985).
In addition to her prose, Erdrich has written several volumes of poetry, a textbook, children's books, and short stories and essays for popular magazines. She has been the recipient of numerous awards for professional excellence, including the National Magazine Fiction Award in 1983 and a first-prize O. Henry Award in 1987. Erdrich has also received the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, the Western Literacy Association Award, the 1999 World Fantasy Award, and the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction in 2006. In 2007 she refused to accept an honorary doctorate from the University of North Dakota in protest of its use of the "Fighting Sioux" name and logo.
Erdrich's novel The Round House made the New York Times bestseller list in 2013. Her other New York Times bestsellers include Future Home of the Living God (2017).
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Some of the excitement that greeted Erdrich's first book, Love Medicine, will be rekindled with the publication of her captivating fifth novel. While building on the strengths for which she is noted (she again portrays several Native American families whose interconnected life stories coalesce into a unified narrative), Erdrich here broadens her range and ambitions. She constructs this book with a more conventional novelistic form and sets most of it outside the reservation. A robust richness of both plot and character, and an irresistible fusion of tension, mystery and dramatic momentum, add up to powerful, magical storytelling. Two epochal, whiteout North Dakota blizzards 23 years apart define the major events of Jack Mauser's life. During the first, in 1972, his young Chipewa wife, whom he has just married after a few hours acquaintance during a drunken binge, leave his car to perish in the cold (an event foreshadowed in The Bingo Palace). During the second, in 1995, Jack's succeeding wives, all four of them, are trapped overnight in Jack's van, having come together for his funeral. In this quartet of personalities, Erdrich creates a gallery of indelible portraits, each of them distinct, vivid and human in their frailties. What they have in common, their love for charming, preening, self-destructive Jack, is their means of survival through the frigid night. Each woman tells her tale-always full of passion, but often farcical, too-of how Jack wooed, wed, frustrated, drove to distraction, liberated and deserted her. These stories provide both catharsis and insight, allowing each to understand how she in turn contributed to Jack's destruction. And the dialogue, especially the bickering among claustrophobically confined women, is pungent and smart. Erdrich reveals here a new talent for unexpected plot twists and cliff-hanger chapter endings, some funny, some melodramatic. If there are a few too many coincidences (Jack, who is presumed dead but is not, reluctantly kidnaps his own infant son, who in turn is kidnapped by Jack's fifth wife's ex-husband, also presumed dead), it all seems quite plausible in the context of Erdrich's adroit manipulation of interlocking plot strands. Her eye for sensual detail is impeccable, whether it is the evocation of the landscape and weather of the North Dakota plains or the many erotic couplings that Jack's wives, and Jack himself, remember. Jack, too, is a triumph; he's a real scamp and philanderer with other deplorable character traits, but Erdrich limns him with tolerant humor and compassion. Erdrich has definitely gone commercial here, and some readers may miss the ethereal, mystical qualities of her early work. But like several characters who are psychologically or almost literally reborn, reinspired and reset on life's path, Erdrich has granted her literary reputation refreshing new potency. 100,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; author tour; first serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild alternate; dramatic rights: Charles Rembar. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
In the opening pages of Love Medicine (1984), Louise Erdrich's award-winning first novel, a young Chippewa woman, June Morrissey, leaves a stray man she has picked up in a bar and walks into the teeth of a North Dakota blizzard, eventually freezing to death. Erdrich's latest novel, certainly her most daring and perhaps her most compelling, returns to Morrissey's death, but this time focusing on the heretofore faceless man in the bar. Jack Mauser was a cocky construction worker in 1972 when he failed to follow Morrissey into the blizzard, and he has been reliving that incident and its ramifications through two decades and four wives. We pick up Mauser's story in 1994 with Jack married to Dot Nanapush (The Beet Queen, 1986) but obsessed with first-wife Eleanor, recently reappeared in his life: "Falling back in love with your first wife while married to your fifth was a sticky, stupid business." Yes, but sticky and stupid in that messy, painfully funny, real-life kind of way. If Jack's slapsticky bumbling--winning and losing women and money with equal abandon--is the novel's fulcrum, his four wives are its heart. Always a master of the extended set-piece, Erdrich reaches new heights here, conjuring up another North Dakota blizzard to trap the four Mauser wives, who are driving home from Jack's funeral (it's not quite what you think). Huddled in a Ford Escort, they stay alive by fending off sleep with "Tales of Burning Love." Not only revealing the depths of their feelings for the hapless Jack, these four-gals-sitting-around-talking-to-keep-from-freezing also come to recognize the strength of their bonds with one another and the depths of their individual resilience. In Erdrich's world, both women and men freeze to death from lack of love--the June Morrissey paradigm--but they are also capable of bringing themselves back to life. The power of narrative and the salvation of love have always been Erdrich's quintessential themes, but here she expresses them with even greater force and clarity. A wise, wonderful, and wickedly funny novel. (Reviewed March 1, 1996)0060176059Bill Ott
Kirkus Review
Erdrich opens her sprawling and ambitious new novel with the same haunting episode that began Love Medicine (1984): A young Chippewa woman gets out of a car and walks through a snowstorm to her death--but this time we see it all through the eyes of the man who was with her in that car. Jack Mauser never lets go of the memory of June Kashpaw vanishing into the North Dakota snow. He considers her his first wife, though he was were married to her in a dubious ceremony and they knew each other for less than a day. Jack goes on to collect- -and be dumped by--four more wives: brainy and passionate Eleanor; brittle Candice; beautiful, low-life Marlis; and, finally, stolid Dot (a child in The Beet Queen, 1986), who's fond of Jack but, deep down, still loves her ``real'' husband, imprisoned Gerry Nanapush. All four ex-wives are forced together when Jack's house burns down. He's presumed dead, though the evidence is inconclusive, and after a funeral service, the four women drive off together into a howling blizzard. When their car gets stuck in a remote spot, it seems they could easily meet June Kashpaw's fate--and in fact the specter of June could be among them in the form of a mysterious, silent hitchhiker whom Dot has insisted on picking up. Erdrich has a lot of fun probing the possibilities of four ex-wives trapped together with all their small rivalries and disappointments--and some of their most heartfelt secrets--revealed to one another. But despite some great moments, it all goes on much too long as the women tell their detailed but not always compelling life stories. There's just too much material going in too many different directions to keep the storyline taut. Still, there are good surprises--the hitchhiker's true identity is one--and Erdrich's prose shines as brilliantly as ever. Maybe not quite tales of burning love, but definitely plenty of smoke. (First serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild alternate selection; $150,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Library Journal Review
Erdrich's rich, lapidary new novel opens with Jack Mauser drinking himself silly with a young pick-up, who subsequently freezes to death in her thin shoes in a North Dakota blizzard. Jack would certainly seem to be a loser, and someone any sane woman would stay away from, but this isn't a novel about him. It's a novel about his many wives, who come together at his funeral sometime later and get stuck in another blizzard, which gives them the opportunity to open up about their deepest secrets. Since this is Erdrich (The Beet Queen, LJ 8/86) writing, these women are predictably passionate, quirky, and, well, unpredictable, ranging from solid Dot (who married Jack on a dare and has another husband in jail), utterly seductive Eleanor, brisk Candace, and childlike Marlis. The plot may sound a bit formulaic, but the effect is anything but. Erdrich sometimes pushes her sensuous descriptions over the top, and the effect is near-parody. But the result will entertain readers everywhere. For most collections.Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Tales of Burning Love A Novel Chapter One Jack ofSunflowers Easter Snow1981Williston, North Dakota Holy Saturday in an oil boomtown with no insurance. Toothache. From his rent-by-the-week motel unit, Jack Mauser called six numbers. His jawbone throbbed, silver-fine needles sank and disappeared. A handful of aspirin was no help. A rock, maybe better--something to bang his head against. He tried, he tried, but he could not get numb. The stray cat he had allowed to sleep in the bathtub eased against his pants legs. He kept on dialing and redialing until at last a number was answered by a chipper voice. Uncalled for, his thought was, wrong. Perky traits in a dental office receptionist. He craved compassion, lavish pity. He described his situation, answered questions, begged for an appointment although he had no real stake in the town--he was no more than temporary, a mud engineer due for a transfer. Today! Please? He heard pages rustle, gum snap. The cat stretched, tapped his knee with a sheathed paw, and fixed its eyes on Jack's lap where it had been petted. Jack cuffed at the stray. The orange-striped tom batted him back, playful. "Mr. Mauser?" The voice was sly, as though asking him a trick question. Air would hit the tooth, still he opened his mouth to plead and stood up, dizzy from too much aspirin. Just then, the cat, determined, launched itself straight upward to climb Jack like a tree. It sank thick razor claws a half inch deep into Jack's thigh. Hung there. Jack screamed into the telephone. The claws clenched in panic, and Jack, whirling in an awful dance, ripped the cat from his legs and threw the creature with such force that it bounced off a wall, but twisted over and came up strolling. No loss of dignity. There was silence on the other end of the connection, and then the voice, less chipper. "Are you experiencing discomfort?" Jack whimpered as a muffled consultation took place, her hand presumably clapped over the receiver. "The doctor will make room for you in his schedule." The voice was solemn. "About an hour from now?" On his way to an unknown dentist, holes punched in his thigh, his jaw a throbbing lump he wanted to saw off his face, Jack sought temporary anesthesia. He was tall, in his early thirties, and the pain gave him an air of concentration. Otherwise, he didn't stand out much except for his eyes, a deeper slanting brown than most, or his hands, very rough but still attentive to the things they touched. His grim self-sorry mouth. From inside the Rigger Bar, he watched the street. A woman passing by outside briefly struck a light inside of him--her hips, full-not-too-full, bare cold hands, taut legs. He hit the window with his knuckles, caught her attention, saluted. As she walked in, he wasn't sure about her. But then, there she was, slim in a white leatherette jacket, hair a dark teased mass, delicate Chippewa face scarred by drink. She watched him peel an Easter egg, blue, her eyes sad in harsh makeup, then her face relaxed. She sat down beside him and shifted her legs, lightly crossed one thigh over the other to make that V shape. "What's wrong with you?" she asked. "Toothache." "Too bad." She put a finger on the pack of cigarettes he laid down between them, arched her eyebrows, plucked one cigarette out, and held it poised for him to light. He nodded. She grinned awkwardly and bummed another for her purse. The flare of his cardboard match warmed the smooth rounds of her cheekbones, lit the slight crinkle of laugh lines around her moody eyes. She had a pretty smile--one tooth, a little crooked, overlapped. He put his hand out She drew back. She drew back. "Does it hurt much?" "This'll help." He drank from the unhurt side of his mouth and then he ordered a beer for her. "Better yet," she turned from him. "This old Ojibwa remedy? You take a clove in your mouth." "I hate cloves." "Well, you gotta suffer then," she laughed. Besides, he felt better halfway through the second drink. "Cloves, aren't they from Europe or something?" "Okay, maybe. Horseweed. You pinch it up like this"--she rolled imaginary lint between her fingers--"stuff it all around that tooth. Deadens it." She took an egg, dyed blue like the one he'd been peeling when she walked in the door. She shucked and ate it quickly, he noticed, while the bartender had his back turned. Right off, he knew that she was from his mother's home reservation, just by little things she did and said. "All right!" He stood up. He felt so much better he could not believe it. "That doesn't work," she started on another egg, "you take a hammer . . ." "Oh, Christ, don't tell me." But he was unaffected, feeling the pain but not caring anymore. There was just a buoyant ease he'd have to monitor, control so it did not shoot him skyward too quickly. So it did not send him whirling, like the cat. "I have a cat." "What's its name?" "Doesn't have a name." "If you had a cat, it would have a name." She took a long drink, held the liquor in her mouth, swallowed. "I have a son," she said, after a few moments. Jack didn't want to touch that. "We'll go back to my motel. The cat's lonely there. I've got a whole, ah, suite--we'll visit him. He clawed my leg this morning." Jack pointed. "Where?" She laughed suddenly, a little painfully, too hard. Stopped when Jack stared overlong at her. "Come on, let's go check the cat." "No way." She looked serious, put down her drink. "I've got a bus to catch." "Where you going?" Her gaze flickered up to his and then held steady. "Home." It was later, much later, the dental appointment missed. She refused again to visit the cat but went along with him as he made his rounds. One bar, the next. By then she maybe knew who he was although he lied and said that he did not know his mother's maiden name, or his grandmother's. His family would say too much to the woman, make her wary of him. So he pretended that he was adopted, taken out of the tribe too young to remember. "Raised white?" She frowned. "Don't I look it?" "You act it. How's your tooth?" It came to life, a flare of anguish. "I need another drink. A double. I drink like an Indian though, huh?" Mistake. She didn't think that was funny, didn't laugh. After a bit, she asked somebody next to her the time and frowned gently, troubled. "I missed my bus, Andy." "My fault." He had given her a fake name. "Here, you need a refill too." Her hair was long, fine, slightly wavy, caught up in a cheap clip. He reached around and undid the barrette. At once, electric, her hair billowed around her face in a dark cloud. Storm's rising. He closed his eyes, imagined it falling in blowing scarves around his own face as her mouth lowered to meet his. Her hidden mouth. He kept wanting to press his finger on her tooth, line it up with the others. It would require an ever so slight tap. Her mouth was even prettier than when she first smiled--as she relaxed a deep curve formed in her lower lip. Very sad, though, her eyes watching him so close sometimes. He put away his money. "Hey," she mumbled, once. "You got to be." He did not want to ask her what, but he did, tightening his arm around her. She would have told him anyway. "You got to be different," she breathed. He pretended not to hear. "I know you," she said, louder. "You're the one. You're him." He shrugged off her words. The afternoon darkened and the beer lamps went on--bright colors, wagons and horses, fake Tiffany. Still, they kept drinking. They kept drinking and then they met up with some people. They got hungry, or needed something to do, anyway. They went out to eat. Steak, baked potato, salad with French dressing. She ordered these things in a shy voice, polite, saying thank you when the waitress set them down before her. As she put the first taste of meat in her mouth, she sighed, tried not to gulp it too quickly, put her fork down every second bite. She was hardly drinking anything by then. He caught her gaze once. His face was falling toward hers. Falling. Her face was still, a waiting pool, regarding him with kindness. The hard lines around her eyes had smudged into a softer mystery. Eyes half closed, she smiled over at him, and, suddenly, he realized she was the most precious, the most beautiful, the most extraordinary treasure of a woman he had ever known. "Jack." A buddy of his, a roommate sometimes, nudged him. "Your squaw called you Andy." "Shut up. You're an asshole." Laughter. Laughter. "We're leaving." "Aw, c'mon." "No hard feelings." Tales of Burning Love A Novel . Copyright © by Louise Erdrich . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Tales of Burning Love: A Novel by Louise Erdrich All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
