Continuity and Connection: Characters in Louise Erdrich's Fiction

The recent publication of Trucks provides the background for understanding the connections and histories of many of Louise Erdrich’s characters in her previously published novels, Beet Queen and Love Medicine. In addition, by creating intricate connections between her characters, Erdrich seems to be emphasizing the importance of continuity in native culture. Native American writers, Erdrich says, ”must tell the stories of contemporary survivors while protecting and celebrating the cores of cultures left in the wake of the catastrophe.” The catastrophe is, of course, the genocide of the Native Americans by Euro-Americans. Erdrich, part Chippewa and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe of North Dakota, takes this task seriously. Characters in her fiction illuminate the continuing struggle of Native Americans to survive and maintain their culture. By tracing the connections of the characters in Erdrich’s three fictional books, Tracks, Beet Queen, and Love Medicine, and two stories, ”The Island” and ”The Bingo Van,” the reader can see the ways she connects destruction, survival, and continuity. In Erdrich’s longer fictional works, the voices of different characters “tell the story,” along with an occasional omniscient narrator. However, the veracity of narrators must always be in question. Pauline and Nanapush narrate the events in Trucks. Nanapush insists several times that Pauline does not always tell the truth