Erdrich requires a degree of commitment not every reader will make, but fans will find that these stories distill her body...
Erdrich (The Plague of Doves, 2008, etc.) has created such a complex fictional universe, with mythic characters reappearing in different guises in her numerous novels, that these 36 stories, even those previously unpublished, resonate like favorite melodies.
All the old favorites are here. Sorting out who’s who and keeping track of Erdrich’s generational time frame is never easy, but the chronological order of the stories helps. “Naked Woman Playing Chopin” stands on its own as a moving, erotic depiction of music as love. The more contemporary “Hasta Namaste, Baby” exposes the secret, unspoken compromises of marriage as a man who has hidden his infertility from his wife lives with her betrayal when she becomes pregnant. “Anna” concerns a woman who moves in with two brothers, a Jules and Jim scenario with a twist. Told in mini-chapters, “Father’s Milk” has the wide scope of a surreal novella. A white soldier attacking an Ojibwe village saves an Indian baby he then miraculously nurses with his own milk and raises lovingly as his daughter. When he marries and has a new baby, she finds her freedom and ends up roaming with the antelope. Not exactly realism, yet strangely realistic mythmaking.
Erdrich requires a degree of commitment not every reader will make, but fans will find that these stories distill her body of work to its essence.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-153607-6
Page Count: 512
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2008
A second collection of tales set in the North American city of Newford (Dreams Underfoot, 1993). The milieu is “Urban Faerie,” a modern setting where characters blended from Old European and Native American myths and legends not only still exist but also interact with those inhabitants inclined to perceive them. One of the latter is author Christy Riddell, who narrates, or is told, stories deriving from this interplay. The twenty-two pieces include two original stories, four others that appeared only as limited edition chapbooks, and an original poem; the remainder are drawn from various collections and magazines. A proportion of Newford’s seemingly human population have “animal blood;” some can shape shift; others have godlike powers (or are gods) and interfere in mortal lives. These, like Crow girls Maida and Zia, art teacher Jilly Coppercorn, or the mysterious street trader Bones (he’s also a Native American mystic) weave in and out of the stories or occasionally claim a tale on their own account. Often intriguing, with a dreamily original flavor and atmosphere, though lacking the impact of de Lint’s Newford novels (Someplace to be Flying, 1998, etc.).
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-86518-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1998
A second collection from a former winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award (The Long White, 1988): ten mildly inspired stories that, like interesting inflatables, could have used an extra breath or two to bring them into a taut, emotionally compelling form. Dilworth shows a strong sense of place, but her ability to evoke the inner territory of longing seems less acute. Besides locale (the settings are mostly in Michigan and Pennsylvania) what unifies these tales are the alternative routes people take to fulfill their frustrated desires for human intimacy. In “Keeping the Wolves at Bay,” a son on the eve of his wedding travels to Europe with his deceased father’s gay lover—and decides to cancel his misguided marriage plans. “Three Fat Women of (Pittsburgh Just Visiting) Antibes” features a trio of friends who discover that the warmth of their argumentative friendship compensates nicely for their failed attempts to find love. The women of the title piece are beautiful strangers who arrive in a small Michigan town, have a drink in a bar, then disappear, compelling a lonely local to cross an icy lake to find them again. In “Awaken With My Mother’s Dreams,” the strongest story here, a daughter gains knowledge from her mother’s attempts to overcome isolation, even as her sisters protest the dangerous kayak fling the mother insists on taking. No story disappoints, but neither is any richly engaging. Dilworth often attempts to dramatize the conflicts of her characters by setting them in stark, unforgiving places: the harsh winter cold of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; the soggy gray of western Pennsylvania; a volcano near Hawaii that erupts obscurely, with no witnesses to view it. But while these landscapes are cleanly molded, their implications fail to illustrate or justify the blandly evoked lives of such people and their one-dimensional appetites. The result: a gathering of sagging forms, promising in outline, but lacking distinct shape.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8142-0812-6
Page Count: 220
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1998
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