by Cathryn_Conroy: What a mixed collection of short stories this is! Most of them are extraordinary. But a few them are weird…as in really, really weird. Hence, the four stars instead of five stars.
Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louise Erdrich, this diverse collection of 13 short stories runs the gamut from loving stories about families to almost horror stories about pythons, rangy attack dogs, and debilitating blizzards to fantastical, bizarre stories of the afterlife.
My four favorites among the bunch: • “Wedding Dresses”: Dora has been married four times. (Yes, Dora, not everyone is destined for marriage!) When all four of her saved and somewhat beloved wedding dresses are ruined after a pipe burst during a January thaw, she spins the tales of her four doomed marriages to her cherished niece, Martha. And they are quite the stories!
• “The Hollow Children”: Ivek is a farmer and part-time schoolteacher who also drives the children to school in this remote farming community. One day in 1923 there is a blizzard—the once in a century kind—that hits as he has an almost-full school bus. He can’t see the road. Is there a road anymore? The story is the bus trip he makes to the school—part real and part fantasy and almost all horror.
• “Love of My Days”: John Timble is desperate and when men are desperate, they do desperate things. He camped in someone’s house, stole his horses and wagon, and shot and killed the sheriff. Exhausted and hungry, Timble finds a remote farmhouse and asks for food and lodging. All is well…except the wife of the house recognizes him. Will she tell?
• “Amelia”: She’s a high schooler who got a part-time job at Kentucky Fried Chicken to save money for college. One of the regular customers would come dressed as Colonel Sanders. It turns out that this odd man would be her savoir.
Even if some of these stories were a bit odd for my taste, the redeeming value is that the collection was written by the extraordinary and magnificent Louise Erdrich. If nothing else, they are all imaginative; some are remarkable, while others are more idiosyncratic.
There is something for everyone in this eclectic collection, although every story may not please any one reader.
Bonus: Each story is accompanied by a detailed illustration by Aza Erdrich Abe, who is Louise Erdrich’s daughter.
