Tracks
Set on a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation between 1912 and 1924, Tracks is the third novel in Louise Erdrich's interconnected Love Medicine cycle and the chronological starting point for the families whose stories will echo through her later books. Two narrators alternate. Old Nanapush, a tribal elder and trickster, addresses his stories to Lulu, the daughter of Fleur Pillager, while Pauline Puyat, a mixed-blood young woman who renounces her Native heritage for the convent, recounts her own jealous obsession with Fleur. At the center stands Fleur herself, drowned twice in Lake Matchimanito and returned each time, a woman feared and desired by the men of Argus. Erdrich braids loss, hunger, federal land grabs, and old Anishinaabe spirits into a novel that mourns what was taken and insists on what survives.
Where Tracks keeps showing up
Three of our editors' lists feature this novel.
What you might want to know about Tracks
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
On a Anishinaabe reservation in early twentieth century North Dakota, the elder Nanapush tells the story of the last winter of the Pillager family to Fleur Pillager's grown daughter Lulu.
Yes. Tracks (1988) is part of Louise Erdrich's loose Love Medicine cycle, which includes Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, The Bingo Palace, and others. Each can be read on its own.
Tracks uses two narrators (the trickster Nanapush and the bitter Pauline) recounting events in nonlinear fashion. Most readers find Erdrich's prose lyrical but the structure demanding.
Tracks was written by Louise Erdrich, published in 1988 by HarperCollins Publishers Limited.
Tracks is 226 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Tracks takes most readers 3 to 5 hours to finish.
Tracks is a standalone novel by Louise Erdrich, not part of a series.
Tracks is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
