Louise Erdrich Tracks, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, The Plague of Doves

Louise Erdrich has shaped the possibilities for Native American, women's and popular fiction in the United States during the late twentieth century. Louise Erdrich collects new essays by noted scholars of Native American Literature on three important novels that chart the trajectory of Erdrich's novelistic career, Tracks (1988), The Last Report on the Miracles At Little No Horse (2001) and The Plague of Doves (2007). The book illuminates Erdrich's multiperspectival representation of Native American culture and history. Focusing on such topics as humor, religion, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality, trauma, history, and narrative form, the essays collected here offer fresh readings of Erdrich's explorations of Native American identities through her innovative fictions.

1. Louise Erdrich in Context Deborah L. Madsen \ PART I: Tracks \ Short introduction Deborah L. Madsen \ 2. A Bowen Family Systems Reading of Tracks Allan Chavkin & Nancy Feyl Chavkin \ 3. "I knew there never was another martyr like me": Pauline Puyat, Historical Trauma, and Tracks Connie A. Jacobs \ 4. "To become a bureaucrat myself": History and Law in Tracks David Stirrup \ PART II: The Last Report on the Miracles At Little No Horse \ Short introduction Deborah L. Madsen \ 5. Power and Authority in the Realms of Racial and Gender Politics: Postcolonial and Critical Race Theory in The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse Mark Shackleton \ 6. "We Speak of  Everything": Indigenous Traditions in The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse P. Jane Hafen \ 7. Love and the Slippery Slope of Sexual Orientation: L/G/B/T/Qetc Sensibility in The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse Patrice Hollrah PART III: The Plague of Doves \ Short introduction Deborah L. Madsen \ 8. "It All Does Come to Nothing in the End": Nationalism and Gender in Louise Erdrich's The Plague of Doves Gina Valentino \ 9. So, a Priest Walks into a Reservation Tragicomedy: Humor in The Plague of Doves John Gamber \ 10. Haunted by Birds: An Eco-critical View of Personhood in Louise Erdrich's The Plague of Doves Catherine Rainwater \ Works cited \ Further Reading \ Notes on Contributors \ Index