Heid's review

oooh, I have the manuscript and will post on it soon. Nice snow day reading. Not to make anyone too jealous. Meanwhile if you want to hear a story from the novel:
www.newyorker.com/archive/ 2006/12/25/061225on_onlineonly03 - 115k -

Too late! Jealous! Love the title, can't wait to read the book.

Vivid, violent and complex. Excellently researched. Wonderful central p.o.v. from an avid listener, a young girl learning the world through her elders' stories. Other p.o.v. shifts take us back into history to contested territories, to founders of families and towns, to the crux of the tensions between American Indians and those who came to call their lands home. Doves. Many, many, many, doves. And human oddities, some who were legend in my own (odd) childhood. Liver Eating Johnson---the very name would send little NDN kids screaming for home!

More jealousy! I've loved her work since being introduced to it in a contemporary lit course many moons ago. Savor it!

Thank you. Literary jealousy is a rare treat!

I look forward to hearing Ms. Erdrich speak in Syracuse in March and can not wait to read the new one.

In addition to loving the prose, the symbolism, the characters, and the twisting story lines, I've always been particularly interested in her inclusion of television in her modern day settings, alluding to the importance/impact of American television in/on Native American culture. So much so, in fact, that I did a college paper on it. After that paper, Tales of Burning Love came out with a TV on the cover and I just about screamed!