[For this year’s
installment of my annual
Beach Reads series, I wanted to highlight books I’m looking forward to
checking out. That means I’ll have less to say about them, of course—but I hope
you’ll share your thoughts on these and/or your own Beach Read recommendations
for a crowd-sourced weekend post that’ll go great with suntan lotion and iced
beverages!]
On the
difficulties of breaking reading and teaching habits, and a book that should
help me do so.
I really, really
love Louise
Erdrich’s Love Medicine (1984; revised and expanded in 1993). That
hyperlinked post says a lot about why; the chapter of my upcoming book that
pairs the short story cycle/novel with Leslie
Marmon Silko’s Ceremony (1977)
will offer an even fuller analysis of how Erdrich’s debut novel portrays some
of the darkest histories and contemporary issues facing Native American
communities while coming to beautiful concluding images of hope for her
youngest generation characters. I teach Love
Medicine consistently in both my Major American Authors of the 20th
Century and Ethnic American Literature courses (paired with Amy
Tan’s Joy Luck Club in the latter
class), and every time I do so I both find something new and meaningful in
Erdrich’s work and draw out compelling student readings and ideas. So again, I
really, really love Love Medicine.
It’s obviously
good to find books about which we feel so strongly, indeed it’s likely a goal
for all of us who love to read, but there’s at least one limitation: it can
make it a lot harder to broaden our horizons, especially when it comes to that
particular author. I’ve read a number of Erdrich’s follow up novels, including The
Beet Queen (1986) and Tracks
(1988), and—perhaps because they quite simply aren’t Love Medicine, as no distinct work would ever be (even though they
do feature some of the same characters and families)—they just didn’t grab me
in the same way. So, both because of those reactions and because there’s only
so much time in life and my list of books-to-read doesn’t seem to be getting
any shorter, at a certain point I stopped reading Erdrich’s subsequent
releases, even those—such as the Pulitzer-nominated, lynching-focused
historical novel The
Plague of Doves (2009) and the National Book Award winning The
Round House (2012)—that I have every reason to believe I would enjoy
and get a great deal out of.
I’m not proud of
that tendency, and fortunately Erdrich has recently released another acclaimed novel,
LaRose,
that offers me a chance to break the cycle. Beginning with a contemporary
tragedy, this newest novel moves back through four distinct historical periods,
tracing Native American histories and identities across these eras and stages
in the lives of two intertwined families. Sounds like just the kind of
multi-perspectival historical novel I love—but honestly, I didn’t need to know
that to know that I should read more of Erdrich, give myself a chance to find
more books that I really, really love and want to teach and share. Expect a
full review here!
Next prospective
Beach Read tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Thoughts on
this book? Other Beach Reads you’d share?
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