A review by rageofachilles
Tracks by Louise Erdrich

5.0

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s not for everyone, though. The best way to read it is after finishing Love Medicine (The Beet Queen is optional). I also read The Last Report of The Miracle at Little No Horse years ago so some of the characters were already familiar. This novel stretches all the way back to the early 20th century, sketching out the lives of characters, Fleur Pillager (and her cousin Moses Pillager), Nanapush, Pauline Puyat, Margaret Kashpaw, and others. The plot revolves around the ever dwindling reservation land and Fluer’s attempt at maintaining her home by the lake. The plot might not excite, but the novel really shines when Erdrich weaves together the daily lives of her Ojibwe characters with Ojibwe myths. The push and pull between modernization and traditional beliefs propels the novel forward, more so than any plot. In Erdrich’s skilled hands, Misshepeshu, the lake monster, haunts the novel, becoming a symbol of the unknowable, a symbol of all that is lost when modernity comes to the lake.

For those that are interested, Nanapush becomes a part of the myth as well, becoming a main character in the oral tradition of Mooshum in Erdrich’s The Round House (set in 1988).