Love Medicine

by Louise Erdrich

Love Medicine

by
Louise Erdrich

book data

3,720 ratings, 3.96 average rating, 330 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		31%
4		40%
3		22%
2		4%
1		1%

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published

November 2005 by Turtleback Books Distributed by Demco Media (first published 1984)

details

Paperback, 367 pages

literary awards

National Book Critics' Circle Award (1984), Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction (1985)

isbn

0606341714 (isbn13: 9780606341714)

description

The first book in Louise Erdrich's Native American series, which also includes The Beet Queen, Tracks, and The Bingo Palace, Love Medicine tells the …more

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Mar 28, 2008

Kirk rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

bookshelves: currently-teaching

Read in June, 1987

Erdrich's first and still best-known work (because it's the one most often taught) has become something of a model for the contemporary short-story cycle, with interconnected stories devoted to a variety of interrelated characters spanning three (almost four) generations. The strength here is less in story (which centers on a love triangle and its effect on family ties) or character (vivid as they may be, they're still devoted women and unreliable men) than in style. I wouldn't call it lyrical b...more

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9 comments

Aug 20, 2007

Luisa rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

Read in May, 1995

recommends it for: novel & short story enthusiasts

To write a novel, start with a good short story. Then, write another. Then, another. Recycle your characters, put them all together, and you have a novel.
Yes, I'm being glib. Actually, I'm a big fan of Louise Erdrich's work. She transitioned from poetry to short stories into novels, and while the transition was not seamless, it was, and still is, a journey and a growth the reader can experience with her. Her early novels do read like short story collections with the imagist...more

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Jan 14, 2008

Kate rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

Read in November, 2007

I read "Love Medicine" as an anthologized short story twice before I finally picked up the entire book. "Love Medicine" is one of the three most moving short stories I've ever read. Lipsha Morrissey's voice, his eye on the world, his confidence in his gift to heal, and . . . well, this implies the wrong metaphor, but his faith in the midst of suffering, his longing to connect to his own history despite its knotted-ness makes him a vivid and resonant character. Don't we all ha...more

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Jul 25, 2007

T G rated it:

(review of isbn 080502798X)

bookshelves: in-my-library

Read in December, 1995

If you find yourself back in the 1990s and in a college course called "Native American women authors," you should definitely read this book. All other people, including time-travelers, should skip it.

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

4 comments

Jul 12, 2007

Steve rated it:

(review of isbn 0060975547)

Read in June, 2007

Before I had yet read Karen Manuelito’s examination of the intersection of interests between indigenous “womanisms,” highlighting particularly the commonalities between the experiences of African American and American Indian women, I noted the similarities between the emphases on female experience in Morrison’s Beloved and Erdrich’s Love Medicine. It’s not by accident that Morrison’s is one of the strongest voices in the chorus of praise on the back cover of the novel, noting that ...more Before I had yet read Karen Manuelito’s examination of the intersection of interests between indigenous “womanisms,” highlighting particularly the commonalities between the experiences of African American and American Indian women, I noted the similarities between the emphases on female experience in Morrison’s Beloved and Erdrich’s Love Medicine. It’s not by accident that Morrison’s is one of the strongest voices in the chorus of praise on the back cover of the novel, noting that “(t)he beauty of Love Medicine saves us from being completely devastated by its power.” Indeed, that tension between stylistic passages of lyrical beauty and heart-rending and impossibly brutal content becomes the hallmark of each author’s narrative. In each work, the principal female characters have had to suffer oppression and misunderstanding both from the outside “white” world and within their own relationships with husbands, sons, and lovers. Erdrich and Morrison each ultimately put forward the possibility of an empowered female subjectivity through privileged access to the community of other women.

Manuelito utilizes a number of theorists to support her own contention that Alice Walker’s notion of “womanism” is particularly helpful in understanding the particular experiences of women of color. As Janet Montelaro notes of Walker, “by foregrounding maternal subjectivities in her novel, Walker creates a prose fiction that conforms to her definition of womanist: it represents not only African-American women’s dependence on and support for each other, but also their commitment to self-esteem and their resistance to obstacles that would deny them a meaningful role in the creation of culture” (178). This seems to underline several common threads in Morrison’s and Erdrich’s works—they center many of their narratives on the specific struggles of women as their characters chart a balance between the prerogatives of nurturing, protecting, and providing for children, and the need to establish a strong sense of self-worth and individual dignity. There are correspondingly many different facets of womanhood available to strong women of color (such as Mother, Othermother/Othersister, Grandmother, Mother as Spiritual Leader, and Warrior) that aren’t as readily accepted within Euro-Western traditional roles.

Many of these unique facets appear in the story of Marie Lazarre (later Kashpaw). When we first encounter her, she’s a fourteen-year old girl pitting herself against the worst excesses of a colonizing form of western Christianity, embodied in the abusive and monomaniacal nun Sister Leopolda. Although the white authority figure makes use of familiar stereotypes that she borrows from the “civilization-savagism paradigm” to which Manuelito alludes, continually racializing the Devil as Indian—a figure who resides in the wilderness outside the convent—Marie resists the damaging internalization of this rhetoric by linguistically turning the tables on her oppressor. She does this by controlling the telling of events through her own narration and by uncovering the true motive behind Sister Leopolda’s efforts to gain Marie’s soul—the raw exercise of domination. Her description of the convent’s exterior demystifies it and strips it of its holy and God-ordained aura: “Gleaming white. So white the sun glanced off in dazzling display to set forms whirling behind your eyelids. The face of God you could hardly look at. But that day it drizzled, so I could look all I wanted. I saw the homelier side” (44-5). (less)

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Dec 01, 2008

Tattered Cover Book Store added it (review of isbn 0060786469)

bookshelves: staff-recommends

recommended to Tattered Cover by: Rob B.

Rob says:

If you haven't treated yourself to the storytelling of Louise Erdrich, this is a great place to start. Her characters are beautiful, tragic, fun and flawed. Sometimes all in the same person! Her subsequent works develop many of the people introduced in Love Medicine. Lots of great reading to be had!

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Feb 16, 2009

Carrie rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

Read in March, 2006

Love Medicine is a novel set in and around an Ojibwe reservation in South Dakota. It consists of a number of vignettes and stories about various members of two families on the reservation, the Kashpaws and the Nanapush/Lamartines, whose lives are interwoven in various ways. It is remarkably well written, particularly considering that this was Erdrich's first novel. She writes a number of different characters, with very distinct voices, each sounding distinct and authentic. And the writing is bea...more Love Medicine is a novel set in and around an Ojibwe reservation in South Dakota. It consists of a number of vignettes and stories about various members of two families on the reservation, the Kashpaws and the Nanapush/Lamartines, whose lives are interwoven in various ways. It is remarkably well written, particularly considering that this was Erdrich's first novel. She writes a number of different characters, with very distinct voices, each sounding distinct and authentic. And the writing is beautiful - she catches both the beauty and the ugliness of the reservation and the town, she mixes (what I imagine to be) traditional, native stories with modern stories, she jumps back and forth through different time periods. There is a lot going on in this book and Erdrich carries it off. She deserved her National Book Award.

I particularly appreciate what she did with the various stories, and how the novel intertwines two different modes of story telling - the traditional Western narratives of the novel with the intertwined multi-voiced traditions of native storytelling. I think the book does a clever job of playing with the question of what is a novel - at first glance it doesn't necessarily hang together as a novel, but the more I think about it, it does - thematically and narratively. On one hand, the story has no beginning and no end - there are so many characters telling so many stories that you can imagine a whole other book about containing more. However, the book begins with June purposely walking out into the snow and her death and ends with her son driving her lover/his father to Canada so that he can escape prison. And since escape is a theme throughout the story - many of the characters are trying to escape their circumstances, whether that be being born into a low class family (Marie Lamartine marrying Nector Kashpaw) or dealing with the after-effects of Vietnam (Henry Lamartine driving his car into the river), it seems to me like the book does tell a complete story - just not in a Western, linear way.(less)

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Nov 20, 2009

Ivana rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

Read in June, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

When I first picked up the book in my college library for a book report, I instantly decided I wouldn’t like it. Starting with the cover, a Native American riding a horse. How appealing could a book on Native Americans be to a European girl who knows nothing about them besides what she saw in movies?
Neither the opening was too interesting. Okay, June is a prostitute, gets hooked up by a man in a bar and has sex with him. I sighed. This will be a long read. But the book report assignment ...more When I first picked up the book in my college library for a book report, I instantly decided I wouldn’t like it. Starting with the cover, a Native American riding a horse. How appealing could a book on Native Americans be to a European girl who knows nothing about them besides what she saw in movies?
Neither the opening was too interesting. Okay, June is a prostitute, gets hooked up by a man in a bar and has sex with him. I sighed. This will be a long read. But the book report assignment said a contemporary adult novel of 350 pages or more. So I nestled deeper into the bed and gave it another shot.
I can’t exactly point out the moment when I realized I couldn’t put the book down. I read it just the same day I brought it home. Little did I know what literary jewel I held in my hands, and what an astonishing world would unfold before my eyes. Needless to say, I got too deep into the story that I forgot to take notes and I had to read it again. At this point, I didn’t mind anymore. Not just that; having it finished for the second time, I ran to the library to pick up more of Louise’s books, The Beet Queen and The Tales of Burning Love.

Louise Erdrich tells an emotional story of two families-the Native American Family of Kashpaws and their “white trash” equivalent, the Lamartines. Following her seven main characters from 1934 up to the 1980’s, each character is represented through its own voice, each one unique and powerful. Louise’s use of language is a topic to discuss on its own; rarely have I read a novel that made me think this is pure poetry. Language is a tool to convey meanings deeper than what they say, a meaning beyond the poor semantics. The struggle of the Kashpaws to find their place in the American society and the struggle of the Lamartines to solve out their own problems, mainly associated to alcohol, domestic violence and poverty will weld into one single struggle when the families unite through a boy, Lipsha Morrissey. Limits between these two, each followed with their own obstacles, will blur; and you will discover that it’s not important who you are, or where you come from. What really counts is the power of love-often destructive, hate, anger, hope and willingness to forgive.
A valuable lesson-don’t judge the book by its covers.It is necessary to read the other novels from her Native American series to fully understand her character’s motivations. Read The Bingo Palace and Tales of Burning Love and you will understand the opening scene of Love Medicine, and many more. Another valuable lesson: always pay attention to the other side of the story.

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Oct 27, 2009

Courtney rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

Read in October, 2009

This book meanders through the lives of members of an extended North Dakota family. It spans 60 years, chronicling moments from three generations of Chippewa.

The plot's orbit is uneven as it revolves around two centers of gravity: June Morrisey on her own, and Lulu, Marie and Nector bound together. That unevenness is not a weakness; it adds complexity to a book about the ways that love binds together us and pushes us apart.

At the outset of "Love Medicine," Jun...more

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Feb 15, 2008

Amy rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

Read in March, 2008

This book actually earns six stars for the passage near the end about being "in love with the whole world and all that lived in its rainy arms."

I read this book because I remember that my grandmother loved it and I'm trying to read all of her favorite books. What if you could read all the same books that someone else read in their lifetime, in the same order, at the same age?

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Mar 29, 2009

Catherine rated it:

(review of isbn 0030706114)

bookshelves: 2009, 50books_poc, ojibwe_country

Read in March, 2009

The first half of this book seemed tremendously fragmented - and as I looked up the ISBN number to mark which edition I read, I saw that several of the chapters were published as short stories before the book itself. Ohhhhh, I thought. Well. That explains that.

Viewed as vignettes of contemporary (to the '80s) reservation life in Northern Minnesota / Western North Dakota, the book hangs together better than if you read it - as I did - expecting a single story arc. That arc does ap...more

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May 09, 2009

Heather rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

This book was alright because I have (not literally) ADD and get bored easily. But the constant need to connect stories and characters and ages and times and places....it was like an explosion of a novel. It was fun and kept me interested, but honestly that was about the only thing that did. This family is - has always been - out of control. They go around doing whatever they want, getting into all kinds of ridiculous situations. And it's really disturbing at times. It's a perfect example ...more

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Apr 20, 2009

Jean rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

this is one of those times i wish there were more stars on goodreads. this book is very good. is it as good as erdrich's Master Butchers' Singing Club? not really. (i think i read the older version -- erdrich added more chapters later.)

i think the book functions slightly better as a series of connected stories than as one novel. it's a tough call. but the chapters' shapes are similar to one another in a way that seems repetitive to me if i'm thinking of it as a novel, but fin...more

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Aug 31, 2009

Lisbeth Solberg rated it:

(review of isbn 0553342495)

bookshelves: twice-read-and-more

Read in August, 2009

I read the first three of this saga out of order; think I read this one first, then The Beet Queen, then Tracks and Four Souls. This one made me feel I should be keeping a character chart or genealogy as I read, but of course, though I've read this one three times now--this time because Em was reading it for one of her bookgroups--I never made a chart and continued to have trouble keeping everyone straight. It's kind of Arthurian in that respect. Despite my own confusion, I love this book; the c...more

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Dec 29, 2008

Taylor rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

bookshelves: fiction

Read in January, 2009

When one reads Anna Karenina, it is important to keep a paper with a list of characters and their affiliations handy. This book (as I realized too late) is similar.

It was a beautiful and moving story, with lots of intensity and gorgeous prose...but I kept getting confused and lost because the story jumps from person to person, perspective to perspective, and is non-chronological. So try as I might, I can't actually go back and figure out the story (stories) in my head.

I...more

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Aug 03, 2009

Peter rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

Read in July, 2009

I've been a Louise Erdrich fan for years and read this when it first came out. I was stunned and delighted then, and even more impressed now after re-reading in preparation for teaching the book to my 10th grade English class. It is hard to think of a more evocative, insightful, magical collection of stories, connected and tangential, which make this novel unique and effective. Can 10th graders travel with Erdrich in her summoning of these voices from the Reservation? I don't know, but what ...more

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Jul 13, 2009

Andrea rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

Read in July, 2009

Intricate family history by awesome storyteller - drew up MANY drafts of family trees to follow - quite fun to put missing pieces together. BUT deeply upsetting - violence and viciousness are commonplace; deep rifts are never fully addressed; and the cycle of hurt continues. book flap claims the book is about the "supreme power of the heart." I agree, if "power" refers to hardening and enduring; developing a callous to the pain we feel and inflict... does NOT leave one wi...more

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Feb 25, 2009

Ashley rated it:

(review of isbn 0060975547)

Read in March, 2009

recommends it for: those interested in historical fiction

This book was so confusing! It was confusing in a good way, however, because it made the book a lot more interesting. There was a lot of overlap between the stories of the two families involved in this book, which is one of the reasons why this book was confusing for the audience. Another reason was that there were multiple narrators, all of them telling the same stories. The reason this was confusing was because everyone had a different view and opinion on the same events. The reason I lik...more

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Sep 21, 2008

Alex rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

Read in September, 2008

Breaking from chronological order, this book's characters span four generations of two Chippewa families. The characters are linked through memory, love, skills, genetic traits, or better yet, commonalities that resurface in an ever changing lanscape of an american reservation.

The structure of the novel stressed the metaphysical embraced by both early American poets and the Natives of our land.

After her house burns down, Lulu Larmartine muses, "How come we've got ...more

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Sep 01, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

(review of isbn 0060786469)

bookshelves: fiction, native-american-themes

Read in September, 2008

recommends it for: college students who are required to read it

2 stars simply mean that the book was acceptable. I learned something, but I didn't always enjoy reading it. I found the writing to be uniquely honest and blunt, which creatively illustrated the issues which some Native Americans face. The book is a collection of stories. Yet, it was difficult to remember who was related to whom and how. At times, I became confused and I didn't care enough about the characters to solve my "confusion" problem. I didn't want to spend my time reread...more 2 stars simply mean that the book was acceptable. I learned something, but I didn't always enjoy reading it. I found the writing to be uniquely honest and blunt, which creatively illustrated the issues which some Native Americans face. The book is a collection of stories. Yet, it was difficult to remember who was related to whom and how. At times, I became confused and I didn't care enough about the characters to solve my "confusion" problem. I didn't want to spend my time rereading any part of this book. I was hoping for a tiny bit of happiness amongst the stories of these complex, depressing characters.

One story is about June. A beautiful, Chippewa woman who wanders through life. She has a husband, whom she loves, but she does find herself leaving at times only to find "comfort" with random men. She has a son with another man and basically gives the child away. This child is raised on her reservation by a white woman, Marie, who is married to chairman of the tribe, Nector Kashpaw. It is after an encounter in a car, with a drunken man from a bar, that June freezes to death.

Another central story is about Nector. He marries Marie, but he never gets over his love for Lulu. Eventually, he has a five year affair with Lulu. Nector LOVES Lulu and he loves Marie. One day, Nector decides to leave Marie for Lulu. He leaves a note and goes to Lulu's house. He mistakenly burns down Lulu's house (while waiting for her) and then decides to return to his wife. Marie pretends she never found the note and accepts her husband's return because she loves him so much. There comes a time when Nector starts to go crazy and then he ends up choking to death on a turkey heart. This turkey heart was supposed to be a type of "love medicine" to cure him of his fascination with Lulu so that he could be happy with Marie. It wasn't Nector's plan. It was his actually his "son" Lipsha's idea.

Oh, Lulu was quite a character. Lulu's hair burned off from the fire which burned her house down, which required her to wear an obvious wig. Lulu's sleeping around caused her children to all look vastly different from one another. And then, Lulu becomes blind in her old age. Marie is so loving and forgiving that she volunteers to care for Lulu, a.k.a. her dead husband's former lover. Like I said, it's confusing, and also creative. (less)

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