Love Medicine Louise Erdrich Summary

Louise Erdrich introduces several generations in the interrelated families living in and around a Chippewa or Ojibwa reservation in North Dakota. Love Medicine is told through the voices of a series of vivid characters, mostly Chippewa men and women who are caught up in the emotional tangle of their families’ histories, but who struggle to gain some control over their lives. In her uniquely poetic style, Erdrich creates an intense vision of a world that is at once violent and tender, ugly and lyrical, realistic and gothic. The separate stories that make up the novel convey the subtle pressure upon the souls of people who are culturally mixed—of those whose lives are shaped by both Native American and non-Indian values, habits, and customs.