Love Medicine: A Novel

by Louise Erdrich

Overview

“The beauty of Love Medicine saves us from being completely devastated by its power.” —Toni Morrison

Louise Erdrich’s debut novel, one of the most influential, beloved, and distinguished works of contemporary fiction and the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, is now available as a special Harper Perennial Olive Edition.

Love Medicine tells the story of two families, the Kashpaws and the Lamartines. Set on a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation and written in Erdrich’s uniquely poetic, powerful style, it is a multi-generational portrait of strong men and women caught in an unforgettable dance of anger and desire and a revelation of the healing power of love medicine.

Each chapter of this stunning novel draws on a range of voices, black humor mingles with magic, injustice bleeds into betrayal, while the bonds of love and family marry the elements into a tightly woven whole that pulses with the drama of life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063464780
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/02/2025
Series:	Harper Perennial Olive Editions
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	4.50(w) x 7.12(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the award-winning author of many novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.

Hometown:

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Date of Birth:

June 7, 1954

Place of Birth:

Little Falls, Minnesota

Education:

B.A., Dartmouth College, 1976; M.A., Johns Hopkins University, 1979

Editorial Reviews

Lyrical and funny, mystical and down-to-earth, Love Medicine entrances.” — Christian Science Monitor

“A powerful piece of work . . . Louise Erdrich is the rarest kind of writer, as compassionate as she is sharp-sighted.” — Anne Tyler

“A wondrous prose song . . . about the enduring verities of love and surviving, and these truths are revealed in a narrative that is an invigorating mixture of the cosmic and the tragic. — New York Times Book Review

“The beauty of Love Medicine saves us from being completely devastated by its power.” — Toni Morrison

“A remarkable first novel that stares more boldly at many of the truths of Native American life in the country than any fiction I’ve read…. It is a deeply, if ironically, spirited novel.” — Chicago Sun-Times

“A writer of truly extraordinary gifts—imaginative power, acute sensitivity, and unpretentious stylistic grace. At 34, she is completing a cycle of work already marked as a classic.” — San Francisco Chronicle

From the Publisher