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Summary
Summary
Anthropologist Vivian Twostar uncovers what may be the scholarly coup of the century when she finds the legendary lost diary of Columbus. Lured by its promise of redeeming the past, Vivian, her son, and academician Roger Williams embark on a harrowing journey from icy New Hampshire to the idyllic Bahamas--an adventure that changes their lives forever. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
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 (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A Native American Studies professor and her lover study documents related to a long-lost diary of Christopher Columbus. This lighthearted romantic mystery by a husband-and-wife team spent eight weeks on PW 's hardcover bestseller list. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Dorris and Erdrich's highly publicized collaboration (serial rights to Mother Jones, Caliban, and Redbook; film rights to Michelle Pfeiffer) is part academic slice-of-life, part love story, and part melodrama, tied together by a diary and Native Americanisms. The first half is loose-jointed, if endearing, while the windup, set in the Caribbean, is interesting for its ideas about Columbus and its mystical lyricism but contrived and awkward in its plotting. The novel centers on a ""lost diary"" of Columbus, which comes into the hands of Vivian Twostar (""I belong to the lost tribe of mixed bloods. . .""), a divorced, pregnant, and up-for-tenure anthropologist in Native American Studies at Dartmouth. Vivian has a fierce grandmother, a teen-age son (Nash), and a stodgy lover, Roger Williams--a ""Well-known narrative poet, critics' darling, Byronic media star"" who is trying to write a poetic version of Columbus's journal. Twostar, who ""had been asked--no, ordered--to submit a professional article on Mr. Navigator,"" searches through the library stacks (she's both repelled by and drawn to Columbus), brings her child (Violet) to term, pursues her affair with Williams (Violet's father, a man also addicted to National Public Radio), and keeps tabs on her son, Nash. After finding the diary, Vivian contacts Henry Cobb (""a scion of capitalism gone rotten""), who invites her (Roger and Violet tag along) to his estate in the Bahamas so that he can try to wrest from her the location of Columbus's crown, purportedly ""the greatest treasure of Europe."" When Cobb finally gets nasty, Twostar dispenses with him via karate chops, while Williams and Violet nearly drown. After Williams, revitalized, shares an excerpt from his poem-in-progress, Twostar finds the ""crown""--which, predictably, is symbolic, made of thorns. The story itself here and its effortful deeper meanings never quite find a way of meshing naturally, and, as in Alice Walker's The Temple of my Familiar, New Age-isms win out over greed and history. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
After scoring substantial critical success individually (for Erdrich with the novels Love Medicine , LJ 10/1/84; The Beet Queen , LJ 8/86; etc.; and for Dorris, with A Yellow Raft in Blue Water , LJ 5/1/87, and the nonfiction The Broken Cord , LJ 7/89), this husband-and-wife team combine their talents to produce what looks to be a Big Time, commercially successful novel, pre-sold movie rights and all. Told in the very different voices of college professor lovers Vivian Twostar, Native American single mother, and Roger Williams, poet of an old New England family, the collaborative effort flows smoothly. Although estranged during Vivian's pregnancy, both are working on academic projects concerning the 500th anniversary of the discovery of North America by Columbus. The collision of their two lives is funny, vivid, and life-affirming; add an element of mystery and you have a sure-fire winner on all levels. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/91.--Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
