Given the fact that Louise Erdrich has been deemed a canonical American writer since her debut novel in 1984, the paucity of published studies analyzing her works is astounding and the monotony of arguments mind-numbing. David Stirrup avers in his work, entitled unpretentiously Louise Erdrich, that “Erdrich's writing has commanded, and continues to command, an abundance of critical and scholarly … interest” (2); however, although one could speak of “abundance” when referring to Toni Morrison or Philip Roth, scholarship on Erdrich – roughly one book-length study being published a year – despite her own prolificacy, merits no such description, I would argue.

Stirrup's study seeks for an organizing principle under the guise of contesting criticisms directed at Erdrich's allegedly apolitical creative efforts. The second chapter tackles the least analyzed, i.e. Erdrich's poetry, paying attention to themes and engaging in close readings in an effort to argue that Erdrich pays heed to the personal–political divide. Thematic and narrative concerns are addressed in the subsequent chapter, devoted to the Love Medicine Tetralogy and Tales of Burning Love. The chapter touches upon the viability of postcolonial theory while analyzing Native American literature in order to show again that Erdrich's work is political. A close analysis and thematic criticism of Erdrich's recent fiction follows, highlighting common themes, motifs and patterns reverberating across her work, and stating the “presence in absence” (107) – even if the novels portray mostly Euroamericans and occasionally Native Americans, it is a loud political statement. Another promising moment occurs when the metaphorical language in Erdrich's work is not only pointed out, but also employed self-reflexively by Stirrup when depicting her literary work as a web, or a fabric, with multiple threads interwoven, narrative strands tied together, spliced, unraveling or fraying, its knots coming undone. I appreciate and find particularly intriguing comparative gestures towards other literary texts, especially those never before juxtaposed (e.g. Erdrich's The Painted Drum and Accordion Crimes by Annie Proulx), and in the meantime I am nonplussed why Erdrich's writing has never been compared to Ellen Gilchrist's with regard to narrative techniques, i.e. Gilchrist's short stories and novels being inter-related.Footnote ¹ A chapter entitled “The Writer's Brief: Collaboration, (Auto)Biography, and Pedagogy” addresses pertinent issues in Edrich's writing practice, her writerly relationship with Michael Dorris, her incessant revisions, but also her memoirs and children's books, indicating a balance between Erdrich's different hats of a writer, mother, wife, educator, student, and collaborator. The conclusion, entitled wonderfully tentatively and aligned with Erdrich's logic “Conclusion? Tradition, Translation, and the Global Market for Native American Literatures,” admits the potential shortcomings of this study: given the abundance and variety of Erdrich's works, an overview is always reductive and bound to fail to reconcile the two stances with regard to her work – “lavish praise and vituperative criticism” (196). Not overtly political, because prone to metaphors, to poetic language perhaps obscuring the underlying politics, striving often for “universal experience – whether it be suffering, injustice, or inequality – that speaks well beyond cultural borders, to concrete rather than the abstract or theoretical” (203), Erdrich's work is credited by Stirrup as nevertheless recognizing “the ethical imperative of sovereignty” (13).

For someone cognizant of almost every article and every study of Louise Erdrich's oeuvre, a question poses itself: who specifically is the target reader for this new publication? According to Nahem Yousaf and Sharon Monteith, the editors of the newly launched series at Manchester University Press, entitled Contemporary American and Canadian Writers, it aims to provide “critical evaluations of established, emerging and critically neglected writers – mixing the canonical with the unexpected” and prioritizing the “concern that each book should argue a stimulating thesis, rather than provide an introductory survey, and that each contemporary writer will be examined across the trajectory of their literary production” (Series Editor's Foreword, vii). On the whole, this is a decent and ambitious study, fulfilling the above-mentioned. Louise Erdrich's work is considered central to the reception of Native American literature, even if her writing is very often criticized because it is accessible, popular, and praised for her lyrical language (“a poet's prose,” as Silko (in)famously put it in her scathing review of The Beet Queen) and her narrative mastery; according to Stirrup and the author of this review, she deserves recognition as an American writer and approbation for her ability to combine and cross genres, “to be let loose of categories and boxes” (26); for her tastes and interests literary first and foremost. In my opinion what makes Erdrich an exquisite writer and storyteller is her idiosyncratic command of the novel, which she reinvents and literally rewrites, stressing its continuing potential, its work-in-progress quality, refusing to treat it as a final product to be lauded and forgotten.