The Painted Drum

Starred review from June 27, 2005
Though Erdrich's latest lyrical novel returns to Ojibwe territory (Four Souls
; Love Medicine
, etc.), it departs from the concentrated vigor of her best work in its breadth of storytelling. Erdrich essays the grief that comes when the sins of parents become mortal for their children. Native American antiquities specialist Faye Travers, bereaved of her sister and father, ambivalently in love with a sculptor who has lost his wife and loses his daughter, stumbles onto a ceremonial drum when she handles the estate of John Jewett Tatro, whose grandfather was an agent at the Ojibwe reservation. Under its spell, she secrets it away and eventually repatriates it to that reservation on the northern plains—the home of her grandmother. The drum is revived, as are those around it. Gracefully weaving many threads, Erdrich details the multigenerational history surrounding the drum. Despite her elegant story and luminous prose, many of the characters feel sketchy compared to Erdrich's previous titans, and several redemptions seem too pat. But even at low voltage, Erdrich crafts a provocative read elevated by beautiful imagery, as when children near death fly off like skeletal ravens.

Starred review from June 1, 2005
Erdrich's nine-volume cycle of novels revolving around an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota has always carried within it a deep faith in the sacredness of the world and of the stories we tell one another. Her fiction looks fearlessly at the harshest experiences and finds within them both mystery and meaning. In her latest, former drug addict Faye Travers is an estate appraiser living in a small New Hampshire town. Faye, a thoroughly modern woman, has always regarded the Native American part of her background with a certain wariness. But her reserve crumbles when, upon being called to sell the possessions of the descendants of an Indian reservation agent, she finds a rare and valuable drum. She impulsively takes it home, where it wakes her at night with its haunting sounds. She tracks it back to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota, discovering how it was bartered away for alcohol. The drum was originally made by a grieving father in tribute to his young daughter, who was eaten by wolves. Once the drum is given back to its rightful owner, it plays a crucial role in guiding three young children, left alone in a freezing house with no food, to safety. It also serves to connect Faye to her heritage and to her deepest emotions. All of the voices that weave in and out of this narrative are, by turns, mournful and funny, rueful and proud, and always, even within the bleakest of circumstances, full of hope. If, for Erdrich, the reservation is the place of original sin, it is also the place of final redemption.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)

July 15, 2005
At the heart of Erdrich's new work is a massive, heavily ornamented drum. Faye Travers, who steals it from an estate she's called in to appraise, can hear it without touching it. As Faye and her mother track down the drum's history, they uncover the early years of Fleur Pillager, an enduring character in the Erdrich pantheon (e.g., "Tracks"). On a North Dakota reservation, Bernard Shaawano explains how his grandmother, Anaquot, abandoned her family for love of Simon Jack, taking the infant Fleur with her; Anaquot's older daughter is thrown (or throws herself) to the wolves following the wagon. Through a vision, Bernard's grieving grandfather learns that his task is to construct the drum. And a powerful drum it is -Simon Jack drops dead as he dances around it the wrong way -but the story is not quite so powerful. Its parts do not hang together easily, and those set in the present don't seem to engage Erdrich's formidable imagination. But passages of stark and painful beauty remain: the sacrifice of Anaquot's daughter, Anaquot's sly dealings with her lover's wife, Simon Jack's death. They may not be enough to hold everyone, but they will certainly hold Erdrich fans. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ "5/15/05.] -Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.