Discussion questions for Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

1. The title of this book proclaims it to be “a novel”.  Did it read like a novel?  A collection of short stories or sketches?  A “novel in stories”?  Was there an overall narrative?
2. Marie Kashpaw and Lulu Lamartine could be thought of as the anchors of all of the stories, even as they stand at opposite ends of the family/tribal dynamics.  Did either of them come across as more sympathetic than the other?  What about their various children and grandchildren?  Did any of the other characters come across as more or less interesting or sympathetic than the others?
3. What did you think about getting multiple perspectives on some of the same events from different characters?
4. Discuss the ways in which tribal culture clashes with American culture and how different characters deal with that clash.
5. Why does Erdrich start the book with June’s death and then jump back 50 years to show us the origin of the Marie-Lulu-Nector love triangle?  Why not just start at the “beginning” and tell the story chronologically?  Does starting with June anchor the rest of the story in some way?
6. The New York Times’s reviewer opined that he wished Erdrich had told us more about the futures of some of the characters.  Do you agree with the reviewer from The New York Times?  
   1. Little did he know that Erdrich would go on to write 8 more novels (as of this writing) in the Love Medicine series, many of which deal with the characters in this novel. Would you be interested in reading other books in the series?
   2. Erdrich has said that she views each of the books in the story as a chapter in the larger narrative.  Does that change your thinking about this book?
   3. N.B. Some of the books in the series take the characters forward in time, while other books deal with events that took place before Love Medicine.

For more resources, check out the Litlovers resources.

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