Four Souls
Louise Erdrich
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2004 HarperCollins
ISBN: 0066209757

A North Dakota Ojibwe woman hunts for the thief who stole her people's land.

Fleur Pillager, whom we met in Tracks, now sets out on her path of revenge. Making her way to Minneapolis, she finds the grand mansion of John James Mauser, the architect of the theft of her peoples' lands.

Intent on exacting revenge, even murder if she can, Fleur hunts her prey with patience & cunning, & to that end hires on as laundress to Mauser's sister-in-law, Polly Gheen, who is housekeeper & nurse to the ailing land baron.

Fleur has more on her mind than doing the family's dirty linens, & in no time at all has conquered the master of the house who marries her in an act of contrition. Even as her revenge is eating away at her, she is all too soon captured by the white man's liquor & births a damaged child.

Told in two narratives of the trickster Nanapush whom we also met in Tracks & Polly, I felt like I was a fly on the wall as all these tortured people, rancid with revenge, heartless from fear & hatred, make one helluva mess of their lives.

However, as with all Louise Erdrich stories, she takes you deep into the Indian culture & community of a century ago, & it is a fascinating visit.

& yes, the Four Souls do arrive at a kind of redemption.

More from Louise Erdrich:
The Master Butchers Singing Club
The Birchbark House
The Antelope Wife
The Beet Queen & many, many more!
(07/04/04)

Rebecca