Louise Erdrich: The Last Report On The Miracles At Little No Horse

By PHILIPPA JAMIESON*

The title is a mouthful all right, but it's easily the best book I've read in months. Louise Erdrich goes from strength to strength with her seventh novel, continuing in her distinctive vein of storytelling about people of the Ojibwe tribe. This is her most ambitious writing to date and, in my view, her finest.

This passionate saga picks you up and carries you along, with (literally) thrills and spills along the way. The prose is rich; it flows and sparks. Earthy lust, crises of faith, colonisation, culture clash, loss and longing are all tackled with deep sensitivity and honesty. The author shows the dark side of human nature but the enduring theme is love.

The central character is the extraordinary Father Damien, who has spent most of his life working on a reservation. He began life as a woman (Agnes), then became a nun (Sister Cecilia) and, driven from the convent by an unhealthy obsession for playing the piano, became Agnes again.

After a series of bizarre events, a chance meeting with a priest on his way to a new post leads to Agnes assuming his identity and going to Little No Horse.

Erdrich draws together kinship threads from her previous novels, with a cast of lively characters all clamouring for their stories to be told. There's Nanapush, Agnes' friend and confidante, the damaged Mary, strong as an ox, with an unswerving devotion to Father Damien, Father Jude, sent by the Vatican to investigate the miracles performed by Sister Leopolda, and there's Leopolda herself, a Jekyll and Hyde conundrum of ascetic piety and rumoured violence.

I did become confused between some of the characters - the family tree was necessary.

Some events are seemingly miraculous, and indeed Erdrich includes elements of magic (sur)realism, but others are explained in a perfectly rational way.

The Ojibwe magic works its spell on first Damien and later Jude, and they face challenges to their faith.

Father Damien is a most unorthodox priest - not least because of his gender, but because he accepts the beliefs of others, and because he is a human with carnal desires.

And of course questions hover until the riveting end: will Father Damien be found out as a woman? And does it ultimately matter?

* Philippa Jamieson is a Dunedin freelance writer

* Flamingo, $31.95