Plague of Doves: Violence, Tragedy, and Survival Without Sentimentality

By Breanne Boland June 12, 2008 Issue

Louise Erdrich’s A Plague of Doves (HarperCollins, 311 pages) is a story told like a symphony. A single note unfolds in the form of a dramatic one-paragraph opening chapter, a brutal murder whose effects and aftermath echo through the rest of the book. Several voices and points of view twist together, overlapping, reinforcing, and sometimes contradicting each other, to create this tale of violence, survival, and the nature of truth.

Set among the residents and longtime families of Pluto, North Dakota, Doves’ point of view switches between several residents--members of the local Native American tribe and white outsiders who don’t always comfortably coexist. Through a witness to the lynchings, his granddaughter, and a local judge, we see the murder, the ensuing mob violence, and its effects on the future of the town that brings these disparate characters together. As one character notes, “Nothing that happens here, nothing, is not connected by blood.” Most often, this is meant to refer to family, but it occasionally becomes a literal statement.

Reaching from the mid-1800s through the 1980s with a cast of dozens, Doves can seem to wander sometimes; however, by the end, seemingly insignificant details become enormously important, and loose threads are deftly woven into the essential fabric of the narrative. And even when Erdrich seems to wander, letting her characters take the rudder, it’s easy to follow along. Doves is hardly a comedy, but Erdrich has a deft touch with the everyday humor of life. The lives of the people of Pluto aren’t picnics, but it’s humor that gets them through. That, and stories.

Doves is an onion of a novel. The book is divided between the various narrators, and each speaker’s section has several chapters and storylines, each of which can be interrupted by quick dives into the past. Evelina, the youngest character, becomes obsessed by this, tracing her family and fellow townspeople back to crucial events, noting that no one is left unscathed. The overlapping paths and marriages and births become too much to keep up with sometimes, making a blur of ancestors and descendents rather than a clear cast of characters. It’s a deliberate confusion, though. Rather than being clumsy and overly complicated, it’s whipped together smoothly. The important thing is not to fight it, but to just follow. Again, what seems like tossed off details, mere errata, will come back in the end—possibly on the very last page.

The book’s title refers to one of the many parts of Pluto’s history that have fallen into legend. Even characters who were alive when these events passed never tell these stories the same way twice, leaving their eager audiences—and readers—to parse out what actually happened. Erdrich gives clues and the odd bit of guidance, but in the end we’re left to make our own conclusions.

The families and town of Doves live in a world where the past is with them and around them, rather than something left behind. They talk of Louis Riel as if he was an old family friend, and no friend or foe is known without carefully considering their heritage and the crimes of their ancestors. Today, land is a commodity, and family lines are more a source of anecdotes than self-definition. For the residents of Pluto, the past is as alive as the present. The remarkable thing about this book is how gracefully they inhabit it and how a town overshadowed by brutal violence and historical oppression can live so plausibly with such humor and love.

(Top)

More from Breanne Boland

More Book Reviews