A review by slerner310
The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich

4.0

Another beautiful Louise Erdrich novel. The drum is so palpable and real to me in this novel, that at one point I put it down and waited until I wasn't alone in the apartment to finish reading it. I was struck, again, by how she loves her characters, even though she provides clear-eyed unsentimental portraits of their faults and strengths. Many strands that deal with parenthood, even more than love, sex and marriage, that show how, so often in our lives we remain someone's child or parent, and how those relationships shift as you yourself grow and change. The greatest gift, and the most freeing, in this book is the forgiveness of a parent by a child. I find Erdrich's world view most comforting, very much a a vision in line with YL Peretz' "goldene keyt" (Golden Chain), where we are inextricably linked to the past and our future, and happiest if e know and acknowledge that fact.