Debut Story Collection by Lise Erdrich
What does it mean to be a “fully-processed” Indian in America today? In Night Train, Lise Erdrich offers a sharp-humored and powerful primer. Set in the small towns and reservations of northwestern Minnesota and western North Dakota, her literary snapshots capture lives playing out against backdrops of emergency rooms, supermarket aisles, backwoods parties, family breakfast tables, booze-soaked taverns, and sterile but emotionally fraught offices. As the pressures of daily life collide with the insidiousness of history, these stories reveal the personal struggles and small triumphs of people facing the absurdities of bureaucracy, cycles of poverty and addiction, and out-sized notions of Indian legends and culture.
Reviews
“Beautiful and rowdy, this book challenged, entertained, thrilled and scared me.” —Sherman Alexie
“Night Train is abrasive, lucid, almost cruel but still very engaging. I admired the open mastery of language. It reminded me how wonderfully rejuvenating it can be to read prose of this quality.” —Jim Harrison
