THE ANTELOPE WIFE [Paperback]

Louise Erdrich (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Perennial Library (2001)
• ASIN: B000H2CLMG
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,325,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Louise Erdrich is the author of twelve novels as well as volumes of poetry, children's books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her debut novel, Love Medicine, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent novel, The Plague of Doves, a New York Times bestseller, received the highest praise from Philip Roth, who wrote, "Louise Erdrich's imaginative freedom has reached its zenith--The Plague of Doves is her dazzling masterpiece." Louise Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Erdrich is back on track with this novel, July 16, 1999

By 

Douglas A. Greenberg (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Antelope Wife: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was disappointed in Louise Erdrich's previous novel, *Tales of Burning Love*, which I thought was overly sensationalistic--a bit "Hollywood" for my taste. In *The Antelope Wife*, however, she has returned to an approach that is reminiscent of her first and most triumphant novel, *Love Medicine*. She writes in a style that may be difficult for some readers to accept--no,it's not "obscure" in the sense of a James Joyce novel, but she changes voices, time frames, and situations constantly. The result is a tapestry-like narrative that is uniquely effective, in my view. Erdrich has a way with words that is rare in today's literary world, despite the countless novels that are published annually. Moreover, because of her own Native American heritage, she is able to convey with incredible effectiveness the realities of past and present life and consciousness within those Indian cultures with which she is familiar.

This is a fine work, one that makes me look forward all the more to Louise Erdrich's next book.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling, haunting, January 28, 1999

By 

K. L. Cotugno (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Antelope Wife: A Novel (Paperback)

With each book, my admiration grows for this writer. Her attention to detail, characterizations, interweaving of mysticism and reality -- and with all, an original dash of humor laced with sadness. As with Burning Tales of Love, she weaves many disparate threads together, creating a narrative blanket that you never want to unwrap from. I've read everything she's written, and in this day when prizes such as the National Book Award mean so much in sales and recognition, it amazes me that her work isn't at least among the finalists.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Oh, Deer Me, October 10, 2006

By 

Robert S. Newman "Bob Newman" (Marblehead, Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Antelope Wife: A Novel (Paperback)

I have admired Erdrich's writing in the past---"Tracks" and "The Beet Queen"--so I was looking forward to reading another of her novels. I must say I was disappointed here. Though Erdrich, like N. Scott Momaday, has a highly poetical style and her pages are filled with beautiful images (which is certainly a positive characteristic), a novel after all needs to have a strong story line or a point. Beautiful sentences and poetic expressions do not make a story, even if spiced with magical realism, sex, recipes, and colorful beads. As a literary testimony to a section of Native American experience, THE ANTELOPE WIFE has great merit. But as a novel, in the company of all the novels of the world, I felt that in this case, Erdrich tried to stretch out her career and write the next book though her heart was not in it. Perhaps it was a bad time in her life. The novel felt to me as one written by a person "trying to be literary". She writes of the mixed and intertwined fates of all those people of the Anishinabe world---Indians, whites, men, women, strong and weak---like beads on a string. The Indians come out holding the short stick. Within this framework, individuals play out their fates, violence and love intermingling with mystery and mundane existence. The characters somehow do not rise above their initial characterizations. The women are stronger than the men for the most part: they endure while the men often fall into alcohol and despair. The author writes in graceful style, but not much depth. I felt---at the risk of sounding snotty---that THE ANTELOPE WIFE belongs more in the category of `chick-lit' than in `American literature'. I once read part of a novel by Amy Tan, but could not finish for similar reasons. I did read THE ANTELOPE WIFE in its entirety, because Erdrich's writing differs favorably from most other authors', but I grew tired of the soap opera quality of this story.