The Red Convertible: Selected and New Stories, 1978-2008

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Overview

This unique volume brings together for the first time three decades of short stories by one of the most innovative and exciting writers of our day. A master of the genre, Louise Erdrich has selected these pieces—thirty works that first appeared in magazines as well as six unpublished stories—from among a much larger oeuvre. She has ordered them chronologically but also by theme and voice.

Erdrich is a fearless and inventive writer. In her fictional world, the mystical can emerge...

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More About This Book

Overview

This unique volume brings together for the first time three decades of short stories by one of the most innovative and exciting writers of our day. A master of the genre, Louise Erdrich has selected these pieces—thirty works that first appeared in magazines as well as six unpublished stories—from among a much larger oeuvre. She has ordered them chronologically but also by theme and voice.

Erdrich is a fearless and inventive writer. In her fictional world, the mystical can emerge from the everyday, the comic turn suddenly tragic, and violence and beauty inhabit a single emotional landscape. Each character in these stories is full of surprises, and the twists and leaps of Erdrich's imagination are made all the more meaningful by the deeper truth of human feeling that underlies them.

In "Saint Marie," the ardent longing that propels a fourteen-year-old Indian girl up the hill to the Sacred Heart Convent and into a life-and-death struggle with the diabolical Sister Leopolda fuels a story of breathtaking power and originality. "Knives" tells of a homely butcher's assistant, a devoted reader of love stories, who falls for a good-looking predator, a traveling salesman, with devastating consequences for each of them. "Le Mooz" evokes the stinging flames of passion in old age—"Margaret had exhausted three husbands, and Nanapush had outlived his six wives"—with unexpected humor that turns suddenly bittersweet at the story's close. A passion for music in "Naked Woman Playing Chopin" proves more powerful than any experience of carnal or spiritual love; indeed, when Agnes DeWitt removes her clothing to enter the music of a particular composer, she sweeps all before her and transcends mortality and time itself.

In The Red Convertible, readers can follow the evolution of narrative styles, the shifts and metamorphoses in Erdrich's fiction, over the past thirty years. These stories, spellbinding in their boldness and beauty, are a stunning literary achievement.

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Editorial Reviews

Valerie Sayers
Most of the pieces in The Red Convertible stand perfectly well on their own and resonate, in this arrangement, in new ways. If multiple voices seemed particularly apt 25 years ago, the recycling here is downright inspired. Short stories have a special punch, and though this is a long collection, many of these stories have that power…Erdrich is one of our major writers: She illuminates large swaths of U.S. history and culture, and this volume is a good demonstration of her compelling stylistic innovations, not to mention her literary cunning.
—The Washington Post
Liesl Schillinger
The author of some two dozen books for adults and children, Erdrich is also a wondrous short story writer. In The Red Convertible, she gathers 36 stories, 26 previously published, together creating a keepsake of the American experience…Reading almost 500 pages of short stories can tax your patience or set your mind wandering, but not with this writer. Erdrich's characters and situations reappear from one story to another, linking generation to generation, past to present, hyphenated-American to hyphenated-American in a multitude of shifting moods.
—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review.

Masculine women, gorgeous sports cars rich with family history, rugged plains, river currents, stubbornness and entropy wend through this spellbinding collection of ten new and 26 previously published stories from prolific Midwestern author Erdrich (The Plague of Doves). Many of Erdrich's protagonists are American Indians (Chipewa, Kapshaw, and Ojibwe feature prominently) of mixed ancestry (French, German, etc.) and difficult means. Erdrich's character-driven stories are rooted in the mystery of the everyday, stretched across the bones of folklore but cured in the brine of modern life: "as an Indian," Gerry finds it " difficult... to retain the good humor of his ancestors in these modern circumstances"; another protagonist concludes that "the only interesting Indian is dead, or dying by falling backwards off a horse." Absurdity and a strained sense of humor keep Eldrich's closely observed tales fresh, making it clear that the life of an "interesting Indian" takes many shapes. An exquisite anthology, this volume should cement Erdrich's reputation as one of contemporary America's best short fiction writers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Library Journal

Erdrich, the author of 12 novels (e.g., A Plague of Doves) as well as volumes of poetry and children's books, presents her first collection of short stories-30 years' worth of both previously published and new tales. Most of the protagonists are Native American, and Erdrich writes equally well in both male and female voices. First-person narration makes this collection more intimate. And although some situations may be far removed from readers, it is easy to find relatable aspects. Erdrich uses both comedy and poignant realities throughout-sometimes within the same story-to create realistic plots that move the stories along briskly. Although organized chronologically, the stories can be read alone in any order. An enjoyable collection best suited to libraries where short story collections are popular.
—Leann Restaino

Kirkus Reviews
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. Agent: Andrew Wylie/The Wylie Agency
Los Angeles Times
"Louise Erdrich is an immensely satisfying storyteller... She finds grace in action, using the gentlest of language."
Ms. magazine
“A collection of brave and inventive stories...”
Chicago Tribune
"Erdrich’s stories don’t grow old. They grow more astonishing for how fresh they still feel. . . . You only have to read the first story . . . to get a whiff of authorial wizardry."
Washington Post Book World
"Erdrich is one of our major writers...and this volume is a good demonstration of her compelling stylistic innovations, not to mention her literary cunning."
Rocky Mountain News
"Erdrich’s characters are unforgettable... Grade: A."
O magazine
“These tales, like the shining car in the title story, have a velocity all their own.”
New York Times Book Review
"A wondrous short story writer…A master tuner of the taut emotions that keen between parent and child, man and woman, brother and sister, man and beast."
Dallas Morning News
"Compiled from 30 years of work, spanning an enormous variety of registers . . . The Red Convertible reveals Erdrich to be one of America’s finest writers of short fiction."
Entertainment Weekly
"Erdrich can sketch a novel’s worth of character and incident in just a few pages."
Ms. Magazine
"A collection of brave and inventive stories..."
O Magazine
"These tales, like the shining car in the title story, have a velocity all their own."
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780061536076
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 1/6/2009
  • Pages: 512
  • Product dimensions: 6.40 (w) x 9.10 (h) x 1.50 (d)

Meet the Author

Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich lives with her family in Minnesota and is the owner of Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore. Ms. Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, and this story—which will, in the end, span one hundred years in the life of an Ojibwe woman—was inspired when Ms. Erdrich and her mother, Rita Gourneau Erdrich, were researching their own family history. Chickadee begins a new part of the story that started with The Birchbark House, a National Book Award finalist; The Game of Silence, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction; and the acclaimed The Porcupine Year.

Ms. Erdrich is also the bestselling author of many critically acclaimed novels for adults, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves and National Book Award finalist The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. She is also the author of the picture book Grandmother's Pigeon, illustrated by Jim LaMarche.

Biography

Award-winning novelist Louise Erdrich grew up in North Dakota, the oldest of seven children born to a Chippewa mother and a father of German-American descent. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 1976 and Johns Hopkins University in 1979, supporting herself with a variety of jobs, including lifeguard, waitress, teacher, and construction flag signaler. She began her literary career as a poet and short story writer and won awards in both fields.

In the late 1970s, Erdrich began a unique collaboration with Michael Dorris, a Native American writer and teacher she met at Dartmouth and married in 1981. In a creative partnership that endured throughout most of their 14-year marriage, each writer exerted a profound influence on the other's work. Although their names appear in tandem on the cover of only two books, Route Two (1990) and The Crown of Columbus (1991), literally everything either one produced during this time was a collaborative effort. In 1995, after a series of tragic setbacks, the couple separated; two years later, Dorris committed suicide.

From the beginning, Erdrich has translated her mixed blood ancestry into chronicles of astonishing power and range. Her bestselling debut novel, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award winner Love Medicine, is a series of interrelated stories about several generations of Chippewas living on or near a North Dakota reservation. Spanning most of the 20th century, the book dispenses with any sort of chronological time line and borrows narrative conventions from Native American oral tradition. Several subsequent novels pick up characters, incidents, and narrative threads from Love Medicine to form an interconnected story cycle.

In her novels, Erdrich explores complex issues of family, personal identity, and cultural survival among full- and mixed-blood Native Americans, delving into mythology and tradition to extract what is both specific and universal. She has been known to rework material, incorporating short stories into long fiction, rewriting, and revising constantly. She continues to write poetry and is the author of several children's books, as well as a memoir of early motherhood and a travel book. She is also a founder of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis, where she now lives.

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    1. Also Known As:
      Louise Karen Erdrich (full name; pronounced "air-drik")
    2. Hometown:
      Minneapolis, Minnesota
    1. Date of Birth:
      June 7, 1954
    2. Place of Birth:
      Little Falls, Minnesota
    1. Education:
      B.A., Dartmouth College, 1976; M.A., Johns Hopkins University, 1979

Read an Excerpt


The Red Convertible
Selected and New Stories, 1978-2008

By Louise Erdrich
HarperCollins
Copyright © 2009

Louise Erdrich
All right reserved.


ISBN: 978-0-06-153607-6


Chapter One The Red Convertible

I was the first one to drive a convertible on my reservation. And of course it was red, a red Olds. I owned that car along with my brother Stephan. We owned it together until his boots filled with water on a windy night and he bought out my share. Now Stephan owns the whole car and his younger brother Marty (that's myself) walks everywhere he goes.

How did I earn enough money to buy my share in the first place? My one talent was I could always make money. I had a touch for it, unusual in a Chippewa and especially in my family. From the first I was different that way and everyone recognized it. I was the only kid they let in the Rolla legion hall to shine shoes, for example, and one Christmas I sold spiritual bouquets for the Mission door-to-door. The nuns let me keep a percentage. Once I started, it seemed the more money I made the easier the money came. Everyone encouraged it. When I was fifteen I got a job washing dishes at the Joliet Café, and that was where my first big break came.

It wasn't long before I was promoted to busing tables, and then the short-order cook quit and I was hired to take her place. No sooner than you know it I was managing the Joliet. The rest is history. I went on managing. I soon became part-owner and of course there was no stopping me then. It wasn't long before the whole thing was mine.

After I'd owned the Joliet one year it burned down. The whole operation. I was only twenty. I had it all and I lost it quick, but before I lost it I had every one of my relatives, and their relatives, to dinner and I also bought that red Olds I mentioned, along with Stephan.

that time we first saw it! I'll tell you when we first saw it. We had gotten a ride up to Winnipeg and both of us had money. Don't ask me why because we never mentioned a car or anything, we just had all our money. Mine was cash, a big bankroll. Stephan had two checks-a week's extra pay for being laid off, and his regular check from the Jewel Bearing Plant.

We were walking down Portage anyway, seeing the sights, when we saw it. There it was, parked, large as alive. Really as if it was alive. I thought of the word "repose" because the car wasn't simply stopped, parked, or whatever. That car reposed, calm and gleaming, a for sale sign in its left front window. Then before we had thought it over at all, the car belonged to us and our pockets were empty. We had just enough money for gas back home.

We went places in that car, me and Stephan. A little bit of insurance money came through from the fire and we took off driving all one whole summer. I can't tell you all the places we went to. We started off toward the Little Knife River and Mandaree in Fort Berthold and then we found ourselves down in Wakpala somehow and then suddenly we were over in Montana on the Rocky Boys and yet the summer was not even half over. Some people hang on to details when they travel, but we didn't let them bother us and just lived our everyday lives here to there.

I do remember there was this one place with willows; however, I laid under those trees and it was comfortable. So comfortable. The branches bent down all around me like a tent or a stable. And quiet, it was quiet, even though there was a dance close enough so I could see it going on. It was not too still, or too windy either, that day. When the dust rises up and hangs in the air around the dancers like that I feel comfortable. Stephan was asleep. Later on he woke up and we started driving again. We were somewhere in Montana, or maybe on the Blood Reserve, it could have been anywhere. Anyway, it was where we met the girl.

all her hair was in buns around her ears, that's the first thing I saw. She was alongside the road with her arm out so we stopped. That girl was short, so short her lumbershirt looked comical on her, like a nightgown. She had jeans on and fancy moccasins and she carried a little suitcase.

"Hop on in," says Stephan. So she climbs in between us.

"We'll take you home," I says, "Where do you live?"

"Chicken," she says.

"Where's that?" I ask her.

"Alaska."

"Okay," Stephan says, and we drive.

We got up there and never wanted to leave. The sun doesn't truly set there in summer and the night is more a soft dusk. You might doze off, sometimes, but before you know it you're up again, like an animal in nature. You never feel like you have to sleep hard or put away the world. And things would grow up there. One day just dirt or moss, the next day flowers and long grass. The girl's family really took to us. They fed us and put us up. We had our own tent to live in by their house and the kids would be in and out of there all day and night.

(Continues...)



Excerpted from The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich Copyright © 2009 by Louise Erdrich. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5
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Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews

  • Posted June 16, 2009

    I Also Recommend:

    The Painted Drum
    The Master Butchers Singing Club
    The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

    Strong Stories From an Outstanding Author

    Normally I don't enjoy reading short stories but this collection held my interest from beginning to end. It might be because I can somewhat identify with the author; she makes use of vocabulary from the Ojibwe language and I'm part Potawatomi and have briefly studied our language--the two are very similar and that adds richness to the reading for me. Most of her Ojibwe words the reader will understand from their use within the sentence but at times I thought a glossary might have been helpful.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted July 20, 2012

    Sad ending

    “The Red Convertible” (Erdrich, 2003, p. 1028) is centered between the relationship of two brothers. Lyman Lamartine, who narrates the story, lives on a Native American Reservation. Lyman talks about his experiences as he embraces and keeps alive the memorable and unforgettable times he had with his brother, Henry. One of the strongest points in Lyman’s character is his compassionate and caring personality. Although life was going well for Lyman, he portrays to be jealous and mischievous at times. In spite of this, he faces a terrible devastation at the end, for he is surprisingly unaware of the worst, shocking tragedy yet to come.

    The significance of the story’s correlation between the car and the brothers become apparent after the car comes into the scene. The car’s most powerful contribution relates to the bonding between the brothers and the passion for the car. Therefore, symbolism plays a role between the relationship of the brothers and the attraction for the car.

    Later on in the story, revenge and jealousy emerges as Lyman gets the cold shoulder from Henry after Henry’s return from military training. Lyman angrily lashes out as he destroys the car, but their relationship becomes mended after Henry fixes the car back to normal and all is well.

    After the relationship was restored, Lyman and Henry decided to go to the river. The drive over there was exhilarating for the brothers; the air smelled fresh and the car sounded smooth. Lyman could sense Henry’s contentment by his facial expressions. They experienced a rejuvenating bonding that day.

    Things appear to be going great, but the story takes a turn after their arrival. They finally arrived at the river. Henry and Lyman step out of the car, bicker for a while, and finally say their apologies. Then, the change starts to happen when Henry decides to take a drink of alcohol. After a little while, Henry starts to feeling good. He starts dancing, laughing, joking, and acting silly. He complains of feeling hot, so he submerges himself into the water. Suddenly, Lyman observes Henry being quickly taken away by the fast flowing water and debris. Lyman abruptly leaps into the river hoping to save his defenseless brother. Unfortunately, it is too late.

    The sad part of the story is when Henry drifts away and is "gone" (Erdrich, 2003, p. 1034) forever. To this end, Lyman who is torn with devastation and hopelessness, gets out of the river water, proceeds to the car and starts it. He then advances the car into the water and steps out as Lyman clarifies, "I get out, close the door, and watch it plow softly into the water" (Erdrich, 2003, p. 1034). All he hears now is the sound of the water moving swiftly.



    Works Cited


    Erdrich, L. (2003). The Red Convertible. In Sylvan Barnet et al (Eds.). Literature for
    Composition. (6th ed). (pp. 1028-1034). New York: Longman.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 30, 2011

    great book

    If you like short stories, this is the book for you. Yes, Louise Erdrich is a great novel writer, but her short stories are just as good if not better. They are are full of character and voice that makes you want to continue reading.

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