Conversations with Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris
Conversations with Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris
Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris, the most prominent writers of Native American descent, collaborate on all their works. In these interviews, conducted both separately and jointly, they discuss how their writing moves from conception to completion and how The Beet Queen, Tracks, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, and The Crown of Columbus have been enhanced by both their artistic and their matrimonial union.
Being of mixed blood and having lived in both white and Native American worlds, they give an original perspective on American society. Sometimes with humor and always with refreshing candor, their discussions undermine the damaging stereotypes of Native Americans. Some of the interviews focus on their nonfiction book, The Broken Cord, which recounts the struggle to solve their adopted son’s health problems from fetal alcohol syndrome. Included are two recent interviews published here for the first time. In this collection, Erdrich and Dorris tell why they have chosen to write about many varying subjects and of why they refuse to be imprisoned in a literary ghetto of writers whose only subjects are Native Americans.
Erdrich and Dorris currently share great success as a literary couple with their unique collaborative relationship. The editors have selected twenty-five interviews that reveal some of the sources of the magic found in the fiction of these two fascinating writers. A striking characteristic surfaces from the slew of similar questions being asked and responded to again and again in these pages. If Erdrich and Dorris have forged a distinctive partnership—and it appears they have—it is due in part to their fearless acceptance of an unprecedented level of creative participation in each other’s writing. Admirers should delight in fascinating glimpses of their work process and personal lives.
Allan Chavkin is editor of Conversations with John Gardner, published by University Press of Mississippi. Nancy Feyl Chavkin is professor of social work at Southwest Texas State University.
