Louise Erdrich's Justice Trilogy

Cultural and Critical Contexts

Connie A. Jacobs, Nancy J. Peterson

• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781611864038
• eBook ISBN:
  9781628954456
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Louise Erdrich is one of the most important, prolific, and widely read contemporary Indigenous writers. Here leading scholars analyze the three critically acclaimed recent novels—The Plague of Doves (2008), The Round House (2012), and LaRose (2016)—that make up what has become known as Erdrich's "justice trilogy." Set in small towns and reservations of northern North Dakota, these three interwoven works bring together a vibrant cast of  characters whose lives are shaped by history, identity, and community. Individually and collectively, the essays herein illuminate Erdrich's storytelling abilities; the complex relations among crime, punishment, and forgiveness that characterize her work; and the Anishinaabe contexts that underlie her presentation of character, conflict, and community. The volume also includes a reader's guide to each novel, a glossary, and an interview with Erdrich that will aid in readers' navigation of the justice novels. These timely, original, and compelling readings make a valuable contribution to Erdrich scholarship and, subsequently, to the study of Native literature and women's authorship as a whole.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. Visions of Justice in Louise Erdrich’s Trilogy
• The Aesthetics of Justice and Redress in The Plague of Doves
• Murder She Wrote, and Rewrote, and Rewrote: A Trilogy of Justices
• Trauma and Restitution in Louise Erdrich’s LaRose
• Family Trees: Land and Kinship in Louise Erdrich’s Justice Trilogy
• You Aren’t a Regular Dog, Are You? Dog as Intermediary in Louise Erdrich’s LaRose
• We Can Wade Grief: Ethics, Politics, and Relationality in Louise Erdrich’s LaRose
• Narrative Design in the Justice Trilogy
• Debwe, Onaakonige gaye Nanaandawi’iwe: Finding Justice in the Language of Louise Erdrich’s Novels
• Honoring Our Relatives
• A Reader’s Guide to the Novels of the Justice Trilogy
• The Art of Fiction No. 208: Louise Erdrich, from the Paris Review, No. 195 (Winter 2010)
• Selected Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index