Editors Reads Verdict
One of Erdrich's most formally daring novels — the dual-narrator structure forces the reader to choose which account to believe, and neither is fully reliable. The land loss is rendered with devastating specificity.
What We Loved
- The dual narrator structure is formally brilliant — Nanapush and Pauline see the same events in incompatible ways
- The land allotment policy and its mechanisms are explained with precision that reads as political as much as historical
- Fleur Pillager is one of the great figures in Erdrich's universe — mythic and entirely real simultaneously
Minor Drawbacks
- The chronology and character relationships assume familiarity with the Love Medicine universe
- Pauline's religious mania in the later sections is difficult for some readers
Key Takeaways
- → The allotment policies of the early 20th century were designed to destroy tribal land ownership and succeeded in large measure
- → Memory and narrative are political — who tells the story of dispossession, and from what position, shapes what is legible as loss
- → Fleur Pillager represents a form of Ojibwe power that the novel both celebrates and places in historical context — it cannot hold
| Author | Louise Erdrich |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Henry Holt |
| Pages | 226 |
| Published | September 1, 1988 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary Fiction, Native American Fiction |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Readers of Erdrich who want to extend into her earlier work and the historical roots of the Love Medicine universe. |
The Year of the Sickness
Tracks opens in 1912 with Nanapush rescuing the young Fleur Pillager from a cabin full of smallpox dead. The allotment era — when federal policy was dividing reservation land into individual parcels and selling off what was designated surplus — is already underway. The Kashpaw and Pillager families are in the midst of it.
Nanapush, one of the last elders who remembers the old ways, narrates to his granddaughter Lulu — the same Lulu Lamartine who appears decades later in Love Medicine. His voice is sardonic, political, and deeply mourning: he is telling a history of loss to someone who is part of it. Pauline Puyat, the novel’s other narrator, is a mixed-blood woman converting to Catholicism with increasing fanaticism, whose account of the same events is filtered through her self-hatred and religious distortion.
Fleur
Fleur Pillager — who is held to have survived drowning twice, who is said to bring luck to card games and death to those who take advantage of her — is the novel’s magnetic centre without ever being a narrator. What she is, in Nanapush’s account, is the last full-blood Pillager and a figure of Ojibwe power that the allotment system is specifically designed to extinguish. The land she holds — and eventually loses — is the novel’s subject as much as any character.
Tracks is the chronologically earliest novel in Erdrich’s North Dakota sequence, though it was published third. Reading it alongside Love Medicine fills the historical background that the later novels assume.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Tracks" about?
Set in North Dakota in the early 20th century, when the Ojibwe were losing their land to government allotment policies, Tracks follows the people of the Kashpaw and Pillager families through smallpox, starvation, and dispossession. Two alternating narrators — the old tribal figure Nanapush and the young woman Pauline — provide irreconcilable accounts of the same events.
Who should read "Tracks"?
Readers of Erdrich who want to extend into her earlier work and the historical roots of the Love Medicine universe.
What are the key takeaways from "Tracks"?
The allotment policies of the early 20th century were designed to destroy tribal land ownership and succeeded in large measure Memory and narrative are political — who tells the story of dispossession, and from what position, shapes what is legible as loss Fleur Pillager represents a form of Ojibwe power that the novel both celebrates and places in historical context — it cannot hold
Is "Tracks" worth reading?
One of Erdrich's most formally daring novels — the dual-narrator structure forces the reader to choose which account to believe, and neither is fully reliable. The land loss is rendered with devastating specificity.
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