Again, we have a book in need of a family tree diagram. This novel covers multiple generations of
multiple families on a Chippewa reservation in North Dakota but is focused on
the Lamartines, the Kashpaws, and the Nanapushes. I could not keep the relationships straight
at all. Lulu has a bunch of kids by
several different fathers; June marries her first cousin but frequently strays;
and Marie, raises several children whose parents could not or would not raise
their own children, in addition to her own children. Marie had intended to join a convent, but a
witch of a nun changed her mind about that vocation. The men are mostly not good people—philanderers,
criminals, alcoholics, etc. Nector
Kashpaw, the novel’s main patriarch, had intended to marry Lulu and then falls
for Marie but perennially carries a torch for Lulu while married to Marie. The relationship that develops between these
two women after Nector’s death is my favorite storyline in this book, even
though it is never really a focal point.
Most of the individual stories in this book can stand alone without the
reader having to get too bogged down in family trees, but the stories
intertwine and wrap around each other so intricately that some sense of how the
characters all fit together is necessary.
Start diagramming as soon as you start reading and expect your tree to
get messy.
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