Novel examines family, heritage
Sue Blechl, Special to the Gazette
Friday, April 17, 2009
“The Plague of Doves” by Louise Erdrich, Harper Collins Publishers, 2008.
With more than a dozen books to her credit, Louise Erdrich has crafted another novel that weaves Native American and white culture and multiple generations into a compelling tale.
Named a Notable Book for 2009 by the American Library Association, “The Plague of Doves” is part mystery and part community history, with many layers of characters and storylines focusing on the small town of Pluto, N.D., and the Indian reservation adjoining it.
As told by several voices, the story centers on the brutal murder of a farm family in 1911. Four innocent Indians are lynched for the crime by passionate vigilantes. The mystery is who was the actual murderer?
Evelina tells the first section. She is about 12 and lives with her family in housing provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She comments:
“Our family has maintained something of an historical reputation for deathless romantic encounters. Even my father, a sedate-looking science teacher, was swept through the Second World War by one promising glance from my mother. And her sister, Aunt Geraldine, struck by a smile from a young man on a passenger train, raised her hand from the ditch she stood in picking berries, and was unable to see his hand wave in return. But something made her keep picking berries until nightfall and camp there overnight, and wait quietly for another whole day on her camp stool until he came walking back to her from the stop 60 miles ahead. My uncle Whitey dated the Haskell Indian Princess, who cut her braids off and gave them to him on the night she died of tuberculosis. In her memory, he remained a bachelor until his 50s, when he married a small-town stripper ... My father’s second cousin John kidnapped his own wife and used the ransom to keep his mistress in Fargo. Despondent over a woman, my father’s uncle Octave Harp, managed to drown himself in two feet of water. And so on.”
Filled with wonderful luminous stories, some humorous, some heartbreaking, this novel captures some of the stark realities of life on the plains and the power of family and heritage.