The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse: A Novel (P.S.) [Paperback]

Louise Erdrich (Author)

Book Description

Series: P.S. | Publication Date: May 5, 2009

For more than a half century, Father Damien Modeste has served his beloved people, the Ojibwe, on the remote reservation of Little No Horse. Now, nearing the end of his life, Father Damien dreads the discovery of his physical identity, for he is a woman who has lived as a man. To further complicate his quiet existence, a troubled colleague comes to the reservation to investigate the life of the perplexing, possibly false saint Sister Leopolda. Father Damien alone knows the strange truth of Leopolda's piety and is faced with the most difficult decision: Should he tell all and risk everything . . . or manufacture a protective history though he believes Leopolda's wonder-working is motivated solely by evil?

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Over the course of 13 years and five novels, Louise Erdrich has staked out a richly imagined corner of North Dakota soil--her own Yoknapatawpha, where every character is connected to every other and nothing can be said to happen for the first time. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse is no exception. The report in question comes from Father Damien Modeste, who has served the Ojibwe through a century of famine, epidemics, murders, and feuds. But the good priest is not what he appears. The prologue ends with the curiously beautiful image of the old man slowly removing heavy robes, undergarments, and, at last, a bandage wound tightly around women's breasts: "small, withered, modest as folded flowers."

How--and why--could such a deception last so long? That's the first mystery. The second begins when Father Jude Miller (a name familiar to readers of The Beet Queen) arrives to investigate the life of Sister Leopolda (or Pauline Puyat, another familiar name). Was Leopolda a saint? Or its opposite, whatever that is? Miracles, after all, are a part of the reservation's everyday life; for every nun's stigmata there's a secular wonder like the death of Nanapush. Indeed, the chapter detailing this old trickster's demise is the kind of earthy, tragicomic fable Erdrich does to perfection, including as it does an extended trial by moose, death by flatulence, and not one but two lustful resurrections.

Erdrich's writing is at its best when she chronicles the bittersweet humor of reservation life. It's at its worst, sadly, when she cranks up the fog machine and goes for the violins. ("He had the odd sensation that petals drifted in the air between them, petals of a fragrant and papery citrus velvet," she tells us, telegraphing Father Jude's attraction to a woman.) But at least the book's sins are sins of ambition--this is a novelist who revisits the same territory because the capaciousness of her vision demands it. Readers may forgive Erdrich's vagueness about Father Damien's religious calling, but they will never forget her images, as lovely and surprising as figures glimpsed in a dream: the devil in the shape of a black dog, his paw in a bowl of soup; freshly planted pansies, nodding at the priests' feet "like the faces of spoiled babies"; a woman in a billowing white nightdress riding a grand piano through the "gray soup" of a flood. Moments like these are small miracles of their own. --Mary Park --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Erdrich renders her North Dakota world of the Ojibwe with a lyrical and richly metaphorical prose style. Her narrative is interspersed with dozens of comic, tragic and all-too-human stories that illuminate her lively, complex and often bizarre Ojibwe people and the priests who come to convert them and minister to their needs. She compassionately portrays Father Damien (n‚e Agnes DeWitt) through worldly and spiritual joy, confusion and crisis. Erdrich commingles and explores many world views as Father Damien's life and thought are continually and profoundly reshaped by the lives, events, rites and rituals of the parishioners who come to love him so deeply. But some of the book's strengths become problems for listeners e.g., complicated family relations, complex exposition, confusing jumps back and forth between different time frames throughout an entire century. Fields has a pleasing voice, a fine feel for the material and the characters and a knack for low-key dramatization. But she has a narrow vocal range that becomes tiresome through 14.5 hours of tape. Based on the HarperCollins hardcover.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (May 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061577626
• ISBN-13: 978-0061577628
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54,663 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

65 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Louise Erdrich Creates Magic Again, July 19, 2001

By 

Joseph Liss (Palo Alto, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse: A Novel (Hardcover)

"The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse" is Erdrich at her best. While I find all her works amusing and entertaining, works to be savored and not just read, Little No Horse pulls together the best elements of her talent. There is passion, death, humor (both subtle and blatant), excellent characterization, and a plot that is tightly bound from beginning to end while loosely juggled between various character points of view. Her characters, whether central or peripheral, are believeable, understandable, and in some ways ordinary while carving out a niche in the extraordinary or mysterious. There are wonderful tales within the larger story. Tales that are crafted well in themselves but always work towards enlightening the pathway of plot or character development. The book begins where "Tales of Burning Love" left off, but quickly moves back to 1912 so that those with little or no experience in Erdrich's novels need not worry about being left out. "Little No Horse" is both prequel and sequel. Entertaining on a surface level, but it also brings to light many issues worthy of reflecting on long after you are done reading. A true work of art.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reporting on the Miracle, October 5, 2002

By 

S. G. Allen "gallerygirl" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse: A Novel (Paperback)

I have enjoyed this author since her first book, Love Medicine. That said, I think The Last Report on the Miracles of Little No Horse is one of the best stories in the realm of storydom - an engaging novel about commitment and love. I did not want it to end.

We learn in the first pages that Father Damien is a female once called Agnes. Agnes/Father Damien has a passionate life ride and the good fortune to befriend and be friended by many wonderful characters. All of Agnes' loves are intriguing and inform her choices. These include the music of Chopin and a drowned piano. Agnes' respect for the Ojibwe people influences Father Damien's belief that the Four Directions are as sacred as the Trinity and must be incorporated into all blessings.

My favorite character, the trickster genius, Nanapush, teaches Father Damien how to survive in practical ways, as in how to make snow shoes and how to unnerve an opponent in a game of chess. Father Damien is generously helped by Nanapush to regain his commitment to the living world in a sacred Ojibwe sweat lodge ceremony. Their discussions about the concept of the Catholic Devil, as opposed to the Ojibwe devils ( some good, some bad), the Ojibwe concept of "not time," and that even a pair of old pants can harbor spirit are wonderful passages to read and read again. Nanapush introduces the Father to a spirituality of wit and compassion and bone deep wisdom that causes his Agnes self to hope in her last breathing moments that she might bypass the devil she fears has conscripted her soul and even bypass the Catholic heaven for the Ojibwe version of the after life that she has learned to prefer as the most hopeful final option.

The character most will loathe, Sister Leopolda, the Puyat, is the best literary example of spiritual materialism I have had the good fortune to discover. Save us all from the Leopolda's of this world! And save us all from becoming her!! Let us hope that the canonized saints will not have to recognize her as one of their hierarchy and then be forced to reconsider their own worthiness!!! Leopolda is the product of terrible abuse. Her treacherous nature, however justified, is a great challenge to the harmony Father Damien so valiently strives to maintain. Their encounters are also passages to savor and return to. When Leopolda wants to repent, beware.

The irony of confusing material wealth and power over others - or even painting one's nails with a laquer called "Happiness" - in hopes of achieving perfect happiness permeates the novel. Ribald humor and miraculous serendipty are artfully balanced with sobering and historically true natural disasters and crimes of human disregard for our first people and the land. Above all, this is a joyous tale of one tormented soul's journey to beatitude.

Thank you Ms. Erdrich.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Last Report, August 12, 2001

By 

Mark Keith (Mesa, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm going to have to reread the six novels that lead up to one. If Louise Erdrich never writes another novel about the folks in and around this fictional reservation she would have given us one huge and marvelous tale, encompassing the lives of characters who not only become the people we feel we've known (or, at least, wish we had known) but people who we feel have become our teachers: ones who teach us to see what is important; teach us to see grace and providence when things become irreversibly fouled up.

"Little No Horse" is a strange place. I won't go into too many details, but it is a place where women over age seventy still have enough sex appeal to make men obsess (sexy enough to make priests want give up the call) -- reminiscent of the women of the Old Testament, particularly Genesis.

In "The Last Report At Little No Horse" Louise Erdrich wrote less of the first person narratives -- which seemed to dominated the first six novels of this series -- telling the story predominately in the third person (my own opinion is telling a story from a third person perspective is much more difficult to do right). You need only open any page in this book to discover the work of a master wordsmith. Beautiful.