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Review
‘She is a writer of stunning prose. At a certain point in reading “Four Souls” I realized it was useless to keep underlining the passages I wanted to quote – every page was marked. “Four Souls” is not only a beautiful and absorbing novel but an extremely timely one.’ Boston Globe
‘Full of satisfying yet unexpected twists. The book begins with clean, spare prose, but finishes in gorgeous incantation and poetry.’ New York Times
‘Ms Erdrich is such a gifted writer.’ New York Times Book Review
‘A triumph of voice enriched by American Indian lore…Erdrich stands alone.’ San Francisco Chronicle
Product Description
From the author of the modern classic, ‘Tracks’, comes a stunning new novel charting that explores the things that can complicate revenge – like falling for the man you hate…
Seeking revenge on the lumber baron who has stripped her reservation, Fleur Pillager takes her mother's name, Four Souls, for strength and walks from her Ojibwe reservation to the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. But revenge is never simple, and she quickly finds her intentions complicated by her own dangerous compassion for the man who wronged her.
The two narrators of ‘Four Souls’ are from utterly different worlds. Nanapush, a ‘smart man and a fool’, is both Fleur's saviour and her conscience. Elderly, he would like to face death with his love Margaret beside him. Instead, the two find themselves battling out their last years. When Nanapush’s childhood nemesis appears and casts his eye toward Margaret, Nanapush acts out an absurd revenge of his own.
The other narrator, Polly Elizabeth Gheen, is a hanger-on in a wealthy Minneapolis family, a woman aware of her precarious hold on those around her. To her own great surprise the entrance of Fleur Pillager into her household and her life effects a transformation she could never have predicted.
In Louise Erdrich’s series of interconnected novels, ‘Four Souls’ is most closely linked to ‘Tracks’. These works continue and elaborate on the intricate story of life on a reservation peopled by heroes and sinners, clever fools and tenacious women. ‘Four Souls’ reminds us of the deep spirituality and the ordinary humanity of this world, and is as beautiful and lyrical as anything Louise Erdrich has written.
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FLEUR TOOK the small roads, the rutted paths through the woods traversing slough edge and heavy underbrush, trackless, unmapped, unknown and always bearing east. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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The novel is narrated by two characters. The first is the trickster, Nanapush. Nanapush tells the story of Fleur as he knows it (at no time is Fleur the narrator the story), so as he tells Fleur's story, he also tells his own. The other narrator is Polly Elizabeth. Polly Elizabeth is the sister of Mauser's wife. She is able to tell more of the story of Fleur's arrival to the household and what the impact there was. She also reveals a bit more of her family's history and that of Mauser's history. In Erdrich's world, everything is interconnected.
I have to be upfront in saying that Louise Erdrich has long been my favorite author, and it is with great anticipation that I look forward to the publication of a new novel. "Four Souls" did not disappoint me. Rather than having a simple plot, Louise Erdrich and "Four Souls" tells a story of Fleur Pillager, of revenge (in many forms), of love, and Erdrich continues to craft out a world that feels very real. Each volume only serves to add to the richness and the color of The Little No Horse Reservation and the characters which inhabit and intersect with it. This is a very lyrical (and perhaps spiritual) story and while it may not be the type of story that every reader is looking for, it is one that I love.
-Joe Sherry
The novel is narrated by two characters. The first is the trickster, Nanapush. Nanapush tells the story of Fleur as he knows it (at no time is Fleur the narrator the story), so as he tells Fleur's story, he also tells his own. The other narrator is Polly Elizabeth Gheen. Polly Elizabeth is the sister of Mauser's wife. She is able to tell more of the story of Fleur's arrival to the household and what the impact there was. She also reveals a bit more of her family's history and that of Mauser's history. In Erdrich's world, everything is interconnected.
I have to be upfront in saying that Louise Erdrich has long been my favorite author, and it is with great anticipation that I look forward to the publication of a new novel. "Four Souls" did not disappoint me. Rather than having a simple plot, Louise Erdrich and "Four Souls" tells a story of Fleur Pillager, of revenge (in many forms), of love, and Erdrich continues to craft out a world that feels very real. Each volume only serves to add to the richness and the color of The Little No Horse Reservation and the characters which inhabit and intersect with it. This is a very lyrical (and perhaps spiritual) story and while it may not be the type of story that every reader is looking for, it is one that I love.
-Joe Sherry
As the scheme to avenge her family unfolds, Fleur proves to be no ordinary woman. She is so complex, in fact, that it takes several narrators to tell her story, a device that makes FOUR SOULS a fascinating and enigmatic tale of the myths, sorrows and passions of a vanishing civilization.
There is old Nanapush, tribal elder, who observes as Fleur launches her private incursion against the ailing World War I veteran, John James Mauser, lumber baron and social scion of Minneapolis society. Polly Elizabeth, Mr. Mauser's sister-in-law, who runs the household, hires Fleur as a housemaid and laundress. She seems efficient and is seemingly everywhere and nowhere, all at once. Little does Polly Elizabeth know how Fleur will change the lives of all within the walls of the Mauser mansion.
Fleur discovers that her nemesis is far too ill to thoroughly appreciate his demise at her hand, so she sets out to cure him of odd maladies from World War I wounds. Her tender mercies lead instead to marriage to Mauser, and as Polly Elizabeth says, "Nothing in the look of her and the ignorant silence told me she could possibly end up connected to me." Nor could Polly Elizabeth or John James Mauser ever imagine where that connection would lead.
FOUR SOULS evolves slowly and as magically as the mists on a summer morning pond. Louise Erdrich, who wrote the bestseller TRACKS, which is a precursor to FOUR SOULS, seems to know the minds, voices and ways of the Ojibwe Indians. The shift in narrative voice is sometimes confusing as the transitions are not always obvious, but clarity is restored as you fall into the cadence of the various characters. All are well defined and drawn, and FOUR SOULS haunts you with its aura of irony and fulfillment --- fulfillment that doesn't always come in the manner in which it is sought.
--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
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