51 pages • 1 hour read
Louise ErdrichA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
After Shaawano found the bones of his nine-year-old daughter, he endured a period of deep anguish. During this time, he was cruel to his son, and would leave the young boy alone for weeks while he wandered. One day Shaawano returned home to find “[s]omeone else had stepped in, taken the boy home and barred Shaawano from visits” (151). Alone in his cabin with his guilt and despair, Shaawano was tormented by apparitions of “tiny skeleton children who flitted and zipped across his ceiling like spidery bats” (130).
To earn money, Shaawano began constructing pine pole furniture. Blaming his weak spirit for the loss of his daughter and wife, he tried to poison it with alcohol but was still haunted by memories of his daughter. She visited him in “a sort of dream” (154) and charged him with making a drum. For more than a century, Shaawano’s people had been curing a set of cedar logs, developing the wood’s resilience and resonance. Only the chosen keepers knew its location, but Shaawano’s daughter told him where to find the logs, out of which he would make the drum.
Shaawano believed himself unworthy of crafting a community drum out of the long-cherished cedar and felt obliged to consult with someone about the matter.
By Louise Erdrich
Antelope Woman
Louise Erdrich
Fleur
Louise Erdrich
Future Home of the Living God
Louise Erdrich
LaRose
Louise Erdrich
Love Medicine
Louise Erdrich
Shadow Tag
Louise Erdrich
The Beet Queen
Louise Erdrich
The Bingo Palace
Louise Erdrich
The Birchbark House
Louise Erdrich
The Game of Silence
Louise Erdrich
The Leap
Louise Erdrich
The Master Butchers Singing Club
Louise Erdrich
The Mighty Red
Louise Erdrich
The Night Watchman
Louise Erdrich
The Plague Of Doves
Louise Erdrich
The Red Convertible
Louise Erdrich
The Round House
Louise Erdrich
The Sentence
Louise Erdrich
The Shawl
Louise Erdrich
Tracks
Louise Erdrich