American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Louise Erdrich’s much praised first novel, Love Medicine, presents interesting problems similar to those encountered in Alice Walker’s more widely acclaimed The Color Purple. A careless reading of either can confirm ugly, dangerous stereotypes cherished by whites: the drunken Indian, in the former; the crude black man, in the latter; violent and promiscuous figures in both. The Color Purple, because it was a best seller and then a Steven Spielberg extravaganza, has been widely discussed in this context and, one trusts that in the long run the novel will be recognized as the subtle work of art it is and not “a sociological tract or a handbook for life” as one of my colleagues at the University of North Dakota said when the furor over that novel erupted here. Love Medicine, even though it has not vaulted to mass national attention, has distressed some Native American readers for similar reasons, as I discovered when I had the privilege of teaching the novel at Turtle Mountain Reservation. Erdrich is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewas, though not a resident of the reservation. Many students feared white readers would see the novel as Turtle Mountain history, not a work of fiction, a document that would confirm white stereotypes, strengthening racism rather than helping to heal it with a dose of “love medicine.”