Lame Dog Hut

Transcription

>> Richard Stamelman: Thank you for coming this afternoon. I'm Richard Stamelman. I'm the executive director of the Montgomery Endowment. And I always am delighted to mention at the beginning of a lecture or presentation by a Montgomery fellow, that the Endowment was founded 35 years ago by Ken and Harle Montgomery. Ken graduated in the Dartmouth class of 1925. And way back in 1977 Harle and Ken had the vision to think of something that was really truly unique in American colleges and universities, which is the Montgomery Fellows Endowment, and which brings to campus and has brought to campus for the past 35 years, close to 180 individuals of very, very high accomplishment. And so this entire year, 20 -- academic year, 2011-2012, we are dedicating to the memory and to the imagination of Harle and Ken Montgomery. Bruce Duthu, who interview Louise Erdrich after she reads from her work is a Dartmouth alumnus. He graduated in the class of 1980. He's the chair of Native American Studies, the program, and he is also the Samson Occom professor of Native American Studies. Author of "American Indians and the Law," Professor Duthu is a trained lawyer, practiced in New Orleans, and he is a former professor of legal studies at the Vermont Law School. And he is also an internationally recognized scholar of Native American Tribal Law, a very complex form of law, and Native American Political Policy. This afternoon's Montgomery fellow is no stranger to Dartmouth, nor to the Montgomery Fellowship Program, having been a fellow in 1992 and again last May. Born in Little Falls, Minnesota, raised in Wahpeton, North Dakota, the first of 7 children, of parents who were teachers at a Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding School, and descended from a grandfather who was the tribal chair of the Turtle Mountain Band of the Ojibwe Tribe, Louise Erdrich arrived in Hanover in 1972 as a member of the college's first coeducational class, and at the same moment that the Native American Studies Program was being established. Following her graduation from Dartmouth, and after a few years working at different jobs in North Dakota, she was a waitress at the Wahpeton Country Kitchen. She weighed trucks along an interstate, she worked in construction, she drove from school to school teaching poetry, and after all this she attended the writing program at Johns Hopkins University from which she earned a masters of fine arts. "Love Medicine," her first book, published in 1984, was a major success, selling 400,000 copies in the hardback edition alone, and winning the National Book Critics Circle Award for that given year. Tony Morrison wrote of the novel, and I quote, "That its beauty saves us from being devastated by its power," end of quote. Since "Love Medicine," Miss Erdrich has written 14 novels, like "The Bee Queen," "Tracks," "The Antelope Wife," "The Master Butcher Singing Club," "The Painted Drum," "The Plague of Doves," "Shadow Tag," and to appear shortly, a new novel called "The Round House." In addition to these 14 novels, she has written 4 books of poetry, 2 works of nonfiction, a collection of short stories, a textbook on writing, and 5 children's books. As you see, she is, according to one critic, and I quote, "One of the most prolific and most read and most acclaimed contemporary North American writers." Miss Erdrich's love of books, writing them, reading them, filling her home to overflowing with them, physically touching them, entering in conversations about them, has led to her establishing, with the help from her daughters, a bookstore called "Birch Bark Books," in Minneapolis, which is housed in an old dentist office and specializes in Native American culture and arts. Miss Erdrich's bibliophilia [phonetic] has an ancestral source. For one meaning of the word "Ojibwe," comes from the verb, "to write." She is descended from a Native People who were consummate writers, going back 2 millennia, and who recorded things on scrolls of inscribed birch bark. What can be called as Miss Erdrich's remarks, and I quote, "The first paper and the first book," end of quote. For it can be said that the Ojibwe were a people who wrote on the world, who inscribed themselves onto the landscape, who left signs on trees and rocks, icons and forms one can still see and read today on the islands that dot the lake of the woods in Ontario. "Books, why," Miss Erdrich asked as the very beginning and the very end of her spiritual travel memoir, books and islands in Ojibwe country, a poetic meditation at once earthbound and philosophical about the way reading initiates an encounter, not only with signs on a page, but with signs in the landscape. Answer this question, "Books, why?" She offers several answers. Like a forest in an outcropping of painted rocks, a book is, quote, "an island as lovingly itself as any in a lake," end of quote. A book is, quote, "A place of concentrated calm and a contentment," end of quote. A book is, quote, "A guide and a lens for new experiences," end of quote. Books, quote, "Have saved my life. I read their words so that I will never be alone." Surrounded inside her Minneapolis house by a forest of books as she is by the trees outside the house, to each of which she has given personal names like, "Guarding Elm," or Tiny Offshoot," and possessed by the same Obijwe words her characters, the Capshaw's, the Lamartine's [assumed spelling], the Pillowdrew's [assumed spelling], and the Morrissey's, addressed to the land they respect and honor, Miss Erdrich is a writer and a poet whose experience in books is as physical, sensual, tactile sensory and natural, in other words, elemental as is her experience of water, stone, fire and wind. Quote, "Now shadows move freely within me as words," she writes in a poem from "Original Fire." And I continue this quote, "These are eternal, these stunned loosened verbs. And I can't tell you yet how truly I belong to the hiss and shift of wind, the slow variable mouths through which at certain times I speak in tongues," end of quote. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a really great pleasure to welcome Louise Erdrich back to Dartmouth as a Montgomery Endowment fellow. Louise. [ Applause ] >> Louise Erdrich: Thank you all so much for being here this afternoon. I know that this is finals week, and for many of you it's that little time out of time that maybe I'm hoping you can escape the onslaught, just to be here. Thank you. I want to recognize several people in the audience. First of all, Richard; Richard is going to be leaving the Montgomery Fellowship, and I just want to give him all my thanks. But a round of applause for everyone for the generosity of spirit, and the immense intellectual energy that he has brought to the Montgomery Fellowship, and the beauty of the Montgomery House. Richard. [ Applause ] And Marty, Martha Earnhardt [assumed spelling], who prepares everything, who is doing this out of an immense delight, I think, in finding people, meeting people, and making their stay here a joy, a true joy in every way. Thank you so much for all you do. [ Applause ] I'm going to keep -- there's just two more rounds of applause, Terry Tempest-Williams [assumed spelling], thank you for being here on campus, environmentalist, writer, ethicist, sister. [ Applause ] And my great delight in seeing Jim and Susan Wright here. Your tenure as president and first lady of the campus was one of my happiest times coming back to campus. And I have to say how great it was and how many wonderful things you did. But I also want to say that I will forever be grateful for my first job, Jim. This was not in the introduction, but I did -- I was hired by Jim Wright right after college. I hadn't a penny, and I was hired as a researcher on his film. And I went to Lincoln, Nebraska and he picked me up at the bus station. [Laughter] So thank you, and thanks for coming. [ Applause ] I don't know how I would have made it without that. What I'm going to read to you tonight is a little piece from this book, "The Round House." And this sort of stands alone. It isn't part of the book in a -- it doesn't stand in the way of reading the whole book. I'm going to take a drink of water; because it explains someone's background. And it's been taught in several medical ethics courses, to my surprise. So I've had some feedback on it in that way; which I never expected. And this little piece, which I'll read before we begin the talk, is called, "The Years of my Birth," and it's about something -- well it's about several things, which I don't want to give away, but it's about partly something you never do read about -- or I haven't, it's the reverse adoption of non-Native people into Native families. And it's something that's happened more often than one would really think because we really hear a lot more about Native children being adopted out. But the reverse also happened, and still happens, non-Native children being -- in this case rescued, brought into the family. "The nurse had wrapped my brother in a blue flannel blanket, and was just about to hand him to his mother when she whispered, 'Oh, God, there's another one,' and out I slid, half-dead. I then proceeded to die in earnest, going from slightly pink to dull gray-blue, at which point the nurse tried to scoot me into a bed warmed by lights. She was stopped by the doctor, who pointed out my head and legs. Stepping between me and the mother, the doctor addressed her, 'Mrs. Lasher, I have something important to say. Your other child has a congenital deformity, and may die. Shall we use extraordinary means to salvage it?' She looked at the doctor with utter incomprehension at first, then cried, 'No, no.' While the doctor's back was turned, the nurse cleared my mouth with her finger, shook me upside down, and swaddled me tightly in another blanket, pink. I took a blazing breath. 'Nurse,' the doctor said. 'Too late,' she answered. I was left in the nursery with a bottle strapped to my face while the county decided what to do with me. I was too young to be admitted to any state-run institution, and Mr. and Mrs. George Lasher had refused me in their house, which was at the edge of a nearby town, where Mr. Lasher owned and ran a farm implements dealership. The night janitor at the hospital, a woman from the reservation named 'Betty Wishcobe, [assumed spelling] asked the head maternity nurse for permission to hold me on her break. While cradling me with her back to the observation window, Betty also nursed me. She was still nursing her youngest child at home. As she fed me, she molded and rounded my skull with her powerful hand. Nobody in the hospital knew that she was feeding me at night, or that she was doctoring me and had made up her mind to keep me. This was five decades ago. When Betty asked if she could take me home, there was really not a lot of paperwork involved; at least in the beginning. So I was saved and grew up with the Wishcobe's. I lived on the reservation and eventually was educated as my Chippewa siblings were, first at a school run by the Catholic mission and later at one run by the government. Around the age of 2, I was taken away for the first time. And I was placed alone in a room. I remember the smell of disinfectant and what I would now call 'a white despair.' Into this disinfected despair, into this white, white room, there came a presence, someone or something who grieved with me and held my hand. That presence would come to me again at other moments in my life, and its return is partly what this story is about. Every morning until I was about 11 Betty and her husband, Albert, tried to straighten me by stretching out my legs. They woke me before the other children, and I drank a glass of thin blue milk. Then Betty sat in the kitchen chair and put me in her lap. Albert sat across from us in another chair. 'Put your feet out, toughie,' he said. I put my feet in Albert's hands and he pulled me one way and Betty pulled the other, and slowly as I grew my legs untwisted. The one was always a tiny bit shorter than the other. I was the youngest of 4 children. It was Cheryl, whom Betty had been nursing when she cared for me in the hospital. Their older son Cedric gave me the nickname 'Toughie,' because he knew that once I went away to school I would get a nickname anyway. And he didn't want it to be one that mocked my rolling walk or my head; my head, so misshapen when I was born the doctor had diagnosed a birth defect, was still a bit flat on one side where I had been crushed in the womb by my twin. But it had been shaped enough by Betty squeezing and kneading that by the time I was old enough to look in a mirror, I thought I was pretty. Neither Betty or Albert ever told me I was wrong. Of course it was Cheryl who gave me the news. [Laughter] 'Toughie, you are so ugly you're cute,' she said. I looked in the mirror the next chance I got and realized she was telling me the truth. The house we lived in had a smell that permeates it yet, old world onions fried [inaudible], the salty outdoor smell of children. Betty was always trying to keep us clean, and Albert was always getting us dirty. He took us to the woods, showed us how to spot a rabbit and set a snare. We yanked gophers from their holes with loops of string and picked pail after pail of berries. We wrote a mean little bucking pony, fished perch from a nearby lake, dug potatoes every year to make money for school clothes. Betty's job at the hospital had not lasted. Albert sold firewood, corn, squash. We never went hungry; all of which is not to say that they were perfect. Albert drank from time to time and passed out on the floor. Betty's temper was explosive. She never hit, but she yelled, and raved. She could say awful things. Once Cheryl was twirling around in the house, and she hit a cut glass vase that was very precious to Betty. When we brought Betty wildflower bouquets, she'd put them in that vase. And I'd seen her polishing that vase with an old pillowcase. Cheryl's arm knocked the vase off the shelf and it struck the floor with a bright sound and shattered into splinters. Betty was working at the stove and she spun around and threw out her hands, 'Damn you, Cheryl,' she said, 'that was the only beautiful thing I ever had.' 'Toughie broke it,' Cheryl said, and bolted out the door. I stood too mute, too frozen to speak. Betty began to cry harshly wiping at her face with her forearm. I moved to sweep the pieces up for her but she said to leave them in such a heartsick voice that I went to find Cheryl, who was hiding in her usual place. And when I asked her why she blamed me, she gave me a glaring, hateful look and said, 'Because you're White.' Children can be brutal when it comes to gaining the attention of parents. I didn't hold anything against Cheryl, and we became close later on. I'm very glad for that, as I've never married, and I needed to confide in someone when 6 months ago I was contacted by my birth mother. Until Betty and Albert died, I liked in an addition attached to their tiny house. They died right -- one right after the other in the space of a few months as the long married sometimes do. By then the other children had either moved off the reservation or built new houses closer to town, and I stayed on. Even now that Betty and Albert were gone and I had the whole house, I spent most of my time in my room. One difference was that I let the dog live inside with me. Betty had always been in favor of outside dogs, but I petted and pampered this one. I had a fireplace installed. The glass front and fans that threw the heat in a cozy circle, and there I'd sit in the evening with the dog at my feet, crocheting or reading while I listened to music. Then one night the telephone rang. I answered it. There was pause. The woman asked if it was Linda Wishcobe speaking. 'It is,' I said. And I experienced a skip of apprehension. 'This is Nancy Lasher.' The voice was tight and nervous. 'I am your mother.' I took a breath, let it out. I said nothing, simply set the phone back in the cradle. Later that moment struck me as funny. It was kind of a reply, a replay of my birth. I'd done it over, but this time I'd rejected my mother, left her in the cradle, [laughter] just as she'd left me. But I work in the reservation post office, so I could have found out my birth parents' address at anytime. I could have called them up, or if I'd been another sort of person, gotten drunk and went and raved on their front lawn. But not only did I not care, I actively did not want to know where they lived. Why would I? Everything I did know about them was painful. That night after I'd hung up the phone, I made a cup of tea, and busied myself with crossword puzzles. One stumped me, the clue was 'double gore,' 12 spaces, and it took the longest time in a dictionary to come up with the word 'doppelganger.' Growing up in the midst of a large family, I'd never registered the visitations from my presence at those rare moments when I was alone, as something strange. The first time I was aware of it was when I was taken from Betty and put into the white room. After that I occasionally had this sensation there was someone walking beside me, or sitting beside me, just beside this -- beyond my peripheral vision. One of the reasons I let the dog live inside was it kept away this presence, which over the years had grown to seem anxious, needy, helpless, in some way I could not define. I'd never before thought of the presence in relation to my twin, who had grown up not an hour's drive from me. But that night the combination of the phone call out of the blue, and the 12-letter word in my puzzle set my thoughts flowing. So Betty had told me all she knew of the circumstances of my birth. She was never one to keep things from people for their own good. She always let you have the truth square; but I'd never thought to ask her about my brother. So she hadn't talked about him, nor had any of my siblings, mainly because I think they didn't really care. Perhaps they didn't even associate me with the Lasher's. I searched my memory and couldn't pull out much, except my twin had been a boy born first. I had no idea what the Lasher's had named him. Of course we were fraternal twins and supposedly no more alike than any other brother or sister, so I was free that night to actually hate and resent him. I had heard my birth mother's voice for the first time. He had heard it all his life. She had called herself simply, 'my mother,' not my birth mother, that careful distancing term, but my mother. It could have been plain arrogance, but there had also been that distress in her tone. My brain had taped those 8 words she'd said all that night. The next morning too they played on a loop. By the end of the second day the intonation grew fainter, and I was relieved, and on the third day it stopped. On the fourth day she called again. She began by apologizing, 'I'm sorry to bother you.' She went onto say that she had always wanted to meet me. She'd been afraid to find out where I was. She said that George, my father, was dead. And she lived alone, and that my twin brother was a postal worker in Bismarck. It was then that I couldn't help myself, I had to ask his name. 'Lyndon,' she told me. 'It's an old family name.' 'Was mine an old family name as well?' 'No,' she said, 'but it matched your brother's name.' She told me George had written my name down on a birth certificate, but that they'd never seen me. She told me he had died of a heart attack, and she had nearly moved to Bismarck to be near Lyndon, but she couldn't sell her home. And she said she hadn't known I lived so close or she would have called me long before. Her light conversational chatter must have caused a dreamlike amnesia to come over me, because when she asked if we could meet, if she could take me out to dinner at Bert's Supper Club, the only place in the area that served full dinner with drinks, I said, 'Yes,' and agreed on a day. She was shorter than me; and so ordinary. I was sure I must have seen her in the street or grocery or bank. It would have been hard not to have crossed paths with her at some point, but I would not have suspected her of being my mother. I could detect nothing familiar or like myself about her. We didn't shake hands or hug. We sat across from each other in a leatherette booth. 'You aren't retarded, lame.' She composed herself. 'You got your coloring from your father,' she said, 'George had dark hair.' Nancy Lasher had red-rimmed blue eyes behind bifocals, a sharp nose, a lipless bow of a mouth, her hair was typical for a woman of 77, permanented gray white. 'At one time she had been a handsome woman,' I thought, 'with strong features.' Now she wore stained dentures, big earrings of cultured pearls, a pale blue pant suit. Walking in I had noticed that there wasn't anything about her that had called to me. She was just like anyone that you wouldn't want to approach. People on the reservation didn't go near women who looked like her. I can't say why; a mutual instinct for avoidance perhaps. 'Would you like to order,' she asked, touching the menu. 'Have anything you like. It's all on me.' 'No, thank you. We will split the check,' I answered. I had thought about this in advanced and concluded that if she wanted to assuage her guilt in some way, taking me out to dinner was far too cheap. [Laughter] So we ordered and ate and drank our glasses of sour white wine. And as we did so, she talked. She asked me about myself, she drew me out, as they say in a novel, she made sounds of interest and sympathy and surprise and said that she admired me. We got through the dinner of Wali [phonetic] and pilaf. Tears came into her eyes over a bowl of chocolate ice cream. 'I wish I had known you were going to be so normal. I wish I hadn't ever given you up.' I was alarmed at the effect these words had on me, and I quickly asked, 'How's Lyndon?' Her tears dried up, her face became sharp and direct. 'He's very sick,' she said. 'He's got kidney failure, and is on dialysis. He's waiting for a kidney. I'd give him one of mine but I'm a bad match, and my kidney is old. George is dead. You are your brother's only hope.' [Moans] I put my napkin to my lips and felt myself floating up off my chair. Someone floated with me, just barely with me. And I could feel his anxious breathing there. 'Now would be the time to call Cheryl,' I thought. I should have called her before. She won't believe this. It seemed best to me too not to believe what I had just heard and felt. I had a $20 bill and I put that money on the table and walked out the door. I got to my car, but before I could get in I had to run to the scarp of grass and wheat that surrounded the parking lot. I was heaving, and crying. When I felt Nancy Lasher's hands stroking my back, it was the first time my birth mother had ever touched me. And although I quieted beneath her hand, I could detect a stupid triumph in her murmuring voice. She had known where I lived all along, of course. I pushed her away, repelled by hatred like an animal sprung from a trap. 'Whoa, what should I do,' I asked Cheryl. 'I'm calling Cedric.' He lived in Bismarck. 'Listen here, Toughie, I'll get Cedric to go to the hospital and pull the plug on this Lyndon. [Laughter] You can forget all this crap.' That was Cheryl. Who else could have made me laugh under the circumstances? It was morning after the dinner and I was still in bed. I had called in sick the first time in years. 'You're not seriously even considering it,' Cheryl said. Then when I didn't answer, 'Are you?' 'I don't know.' 'Oh, then I really am calling Cedric up. Those people ditched you, they turned their backs on you, they would have left you in the street to die. You're my sister. I don't want you to share your kidneys. Hey, what if I need one of your kidneys? [Laughter] Did you ever think of me? Save your damned kidney for me.' 'Okay,' I said. "I love you,' she said, and I said it back. 'Toughie, don't you do it. Don't you do it,' she warned. And her voice was suddenly small. After she hung up, I called the numbers on the card my mother had given me and made appointments for the test. While I was down in Bismarck, I stayed with Cedric and his wife. She's a quiet person, and she put out little towels for me that she had appliquéd with the shapes of wild animals, and tiny motel soaps she'd swiped. She made my bed. She tried to show me she approved of what I was doing, although the others in my family did not. She's very Christian. But this was not a do unto others sort of thing for me. I've already said I don't seek pain. I would not have contemplated going through it, unless I found the alternative unbearable. All my life without knowing it, I had waited for this to happen. My twin had been the one beside me just out of sight. He did not know that he had been there. I was sure he did not know that when I was stolen from Betty and alone in the whiteness he had held my hand and sat with me and grieved. And now that I'd met his mother I understood something more. In a small town people know everything. They know what she had done by abandoning me. She'd had have to have turned her fury with herself, her shame on someone else. The child she'd chosen should have blamed Lyndon. I had felt the contempt and the triumph in her touch. And I was grateful now for the way things had turned out. Before we were born, my twin had the compassion to crush me, to improve me by deforming me. I was the one who was spared. I'll tell you what, the doctor, a woman, who gave me the results of the tests and conducted the interview said, 'You are a match, but I know your story. And I think it only fair that you know that Lyndon Lasher's kidney failure is his own fault. He had issues. He tried to commit suicide with a massive dose of acetaminophen, aspirin and alcohol. And that's why he is on dialysis. I think you should take that into account when you are making your decision.' Later that day, I sat with Lyndon who said, 'You don't have to do this. You don't have to be a Jesus.' 'I know what you did,' I said, 'and I'm not religious.' 'Interesting,' Lyndon said. He stared at me. 'We sure don't look alike.' I realized that this was not a compliment, because he was nice looking. [Laughter] He got the best of my mother's features, but there was something else too. His eyes shifted around the room. He kept biting his lip, whistling, rolling his blanket between his fingers. 'Are you a mail carrier,' he asked. 'I work behind the counter mostly.' ' Well, I've got a good route,' he said, yawning, 'a regular route. I could do it in my sleep. Every Christmas my people leave me cards, money, cookies, that sort of thing. You know, I know all their habits. I could -- like I could commit the perfect murder, you know.' 'Did you ever think,' I said, 'that there was someone walking your route just beside you or behind you, someone when you close your eyes, gone with you opened them, and there when you needed them?' 'No,' he said, 'are you crazy?' 'That was me,' I said. I picked up his hand and he let it go limp. We sat there silent, and after a while he pulled his hand out of mine and massaged it as though my grip had hurt. 'I don't like you,' he said. 'This was my mother's idea. I don't want your kidney. I don't want a piece of you inside me. I'd rather get on a list. Frankly, you're kind of a disgusting woman. I mean, I'm sorry, but you probably heard this before.' 'No,' I said, 'I'm no beauty queen, but nobody's ever said that.' 'You probably have a dog,' he said, dogs love whoever feeds them. I doubt you'd get a husband or whatever, unless you put a bag over your head, and even then it would have to come off at night.' 'Are you saying this to drive me away?' My throat clamped down on my voice. I swallowed, drew a deep breath to stop the shakes that had started in my body. 'You want to die. I know that. You don't want to be saved, right? I'm not saving you for any reason. You won't owe me anything.' 'Owe you, [laughs] owe you.' He seemed genuinely surprised. His teeth were so straight I was sure he'd had orthodontic work done when he was young. He started laughing now, showing all those beautiful teeth. He shook his head, wagged his finger at me, laughing so hard he seemed overcome. When I bent down awkwardly to pick up my purse, he was infected by such a bout of hilarity that he nearly choked. I tried to get away from him to get to the door, but instead I backed up against the wall and was stuck there in that white, white room." [ Applause ] >> Male: Thank you all very much. I can't imagine why that story would be popular in medical ethics courses. [Laughter] My goodness. I wanted to share with the audience before I ask you my first of many, many questions. I wanted to share with them that Louise's writing was a major inspiration in the direction I took my law teaching. Years ago when I first started teaching at Vermont Law School, I began having students read some of Louise's work, including a chapter from "Love Medicine," called "Saint Marie," which I'm sure some of you know. And for years I began having them read other pieces of her writing, and other authors. And I wasn't entirely sure why I was having my students read literary works, works of fiction by Native authors. This is in my course, "Native Americans and the Law." But over time I realized the reason I was doing that is that there is a profound absence of narrative, indigenous narrative in the legal stories. Native voices are not speaking in these stories. And I think provide one of the keys for why there's such a profound sense of injustice that flows out of those cases is that the stories aren't really being heard, and that reading narratives, particularly the kind that Louise shares with us, is at least a way to capture some of that narrativity and bring it back into the discussion. And my students were really grateful for that. They felt that they were at least absorbing or getting some perspective that was utterly missing from so many of the cases; so thank you. Now, we have a few questions. As Richard said, we're going to certainly leave time for you to ask the kinds of questions that you'd like for Louise. I had this sort of vision/fantasy about what this would be like to say, "How do I do this without being so nervous," because I'm in front of classes for well a long time, but when you do something new like this, there's a little nervousness, little butterflies and so forth, so I thought, "Okay, here's what I'm going to imagine that we're just chilling out on her back porch, or my back porch, and a lot of nosey neighbors are kind of, [laughter] you know, just hanging out listening in on this conversation. So we're on the back porch... >> Louise Erdrich: We're on the back porch. >> Male: ...we're sipping -- I don't know what you're drinking, but my stuff is pretty good. >> Louise Erdrich: Yes; mine is great. Yes; mine is great. [Laughter] >> Male: And then there's all these people there; but, you know, we're just going to chat. >> Louise Erdrich: Okay, good. >> Male: So here we go. I want to ask you about humor first of all. >> Louise Erdrich: Oh, good. >> Male: All of your works are populated with incredible humor; and I remember one reviewer asked you about where the ideas for your stories come from, and you talked about the various shards of memories. There's this and this, and your notebooks are filled like car parts and so forth, that sometimes you'll go and look under the hood of this one, or into the trunk of that one. And suddenly a story will appear. And my question about humor is, "Do those moments of humor come from lived experiences, or are you really that warped?" >> Louise Erdrich: I am. [Laughter] I have to say that first of all I am warped, and we know -- I mean, you know, that's part of it, you have to have a sort of warped sensibility to find some things funny. And fortunately I'm surrounded by warped people, and [laughter] they seem to -- well the truth is really a lot of that humor comes out of -- that's what survival humor. I mean, sometimes you find things funny in life that are actually very painful, right? And that's what a lot of the humor is, it's finding a situation in which there's no way out but to laugh, but also finding -- you know, absurd things that happen in my family become repeated, embellished and they become part of our family narrative, the way I think things happen in the stories. And sometimes I can't keep -- I can't help but going onward with some of them. This wasn't a very funny story I realize. There's not a lot of humor in it. But, you know, or maybe someone thought it was funny. [Laughter] But, you know, I also look for humor and collect it in a way. I have a way of collecting the things that happen that are funny that I can't sort of get out of my memory. There are jokes and so on. But it's the -- humor is the hardest to write; the hardest thing to write is something that's funny I find. And that's why I can really count very few writers who are genuinely able to write funny scenes. It's not easy. >> Male: Yes, absolutely. Can you share with us the general plot of "The Round House," because this is a novel that you read to my class, the students in Native American Law and Literature. >> Louise Erdrich: Yes; sitting right there by Susan. >> Male: Yes. So of those pieces that you feel comfortable sharing, can you tell us a little bit about this novel? >> Louise Erdrich: Yes; and I can say that this is a background story for the perpetrator of a violent crime, is Lyndon. And he's in a terrible piece of irony. His sister, Linda, does save his life. You know, and yet he is obviously from the way he treats her at the end you know there's something very wrong with him. And, you know, he has simply no human empathy. And this novel is about -- first of all in broad terms it's about an issue that is extremely timely, but it's been timely for a long time. It's about the rape and abuse of women in Indian country, and the difficulty that there is in prosecuting these cases. And for all sorts of complicated reasons, which if you look at Bruce's work, become -- he can clarify. The situation there is it's absolutely abysmal for women. It's very dangerous. And it's also grinding -- injustice grinds a people down. And, you know, it's said that the women are the heart of the people, and when women -- the heart of the women are down, the people are down. So this strikes at the very core of a healthy society. >> Male: When you and I talked about this work -- and I think it's been 2 years now. I think it was -- well actually over 2 years. It was during commencement when you were the commencement speaker. And this was -- this novel was stirring in here. >> Louise Erdrich: Right, right. >> Male: And we had the first of several conversations about your interest and your concern with the law. And I found that in many of your published works there are legal elements there, law in the narrative and even law as narrative. Could you share with us your process about conjuring this legal landscape in this book, because I think readers are going to find that you are quite explicitly concerned with the law in this particular novel. What was your process? >> Louise Erdrich: Right; in this novel, yes, but my process was actually to do all the research and think it out as thorough as I could and then ignore what I'd, you know, found out, and simply write a story about the victim, a mother, and her son and what happens between the two of them. He, of course -- when this happens to her, the aftermath is the devastation of her spirit. And he wants desperately to have his mother back. He wants her back. And he can't get her back until justice is done. As in many situations, the perpetrator is able to confront the victim again and again to terrorize and be part of the victim's life. And he decides this will not -- he will not let this happen to his mother. He's only 13, but the law does not protect his mother or him -- or does not protect him. So he -- what's his decision going to be? You know. All of this is thrust upon him at a very young age, and at the same time he's a kid with a best friend. You know, this is set in 1988 so he plays "Bionic Commando," which was -- I'm sure you played "Bionic Commando." >> Male: Oh, sure. [Laughter] I don't remember what I did yesterday. >> Louise Erdrich: Yes, right; the video game of the day, yes. And so he -- it's about the emotional violence that -- the emotion that twists their relationship into something that has to be healed, and it's about healing in the end. >> Male: Yes. You mentioned justice, and I have a question actually about justice. And here's a quote that you gave to Deborah Treisman, "The New Yorker" in regard to your recent story "Nero," that was published in "The New Yorker." And you said the following -- but you were talking about romantic justice. >> Louise Erdrich: Romantic justice. >> Male: So I'm going to broaden it to general justice. So here's what Louise said in her interview. "As for romantic justice in the real world, now that I'm 58, I have seen a few instances where romantic justice was achieved and things worked thrillingly out. In life we struggle hard, and compromise everything for love. When it doesn't work out, that's a novel. [Laughter] When it does work out, that's a bad novel. [Laughter] But all told, most of us would rather live in a boring plot that includes someone nice bringing a cup of coffee to us in the morning, or being there to pick us up when the car gets towed. [Laughter] So broadening it from romantic justice to justice, [laughter] although we can dwell on the romantic justice idea if you'd like, but my question is, "What role did justice play, if any, as you were thinking about this story and the characters? >> Louise Erdrich: It seemed to me that as I grew into -- I mean, as a writer, as I became more aware that I really wanted to focus my work on something more tangible than as series of romantic escapades. You know, I didn't really start out thinking my books through. I cobbled them together out of ideas that I had from say the first 4 or 5 books. And then I began to realize, "You know, I really want to focus. I want to focus. And the first time I really decided to focus was on instance of injustice. And it's not -- we're not a family that includes lawyers, or judges, or anyone who is in that profession, but it began -- I began to understand that the long history of injustice in community has enormous repercussions for how people function as a whole. And that when people believe there's no justice to obtained, they behave in ways that are either defeated or vengeful. And so I began to look for this in real life, and to examine it in my stories. >> Male: Yes. As Louise said, in reading in preparatory remarks for this passage, this work has deep applications in courses of medical ethics. And I found that in reading -- and she privileged me with reading a lot of "The Round House," it should be required reading at all law courses as well, at least that deal with the rights of Native Peoples, because it is that integrated with these broader concerns about our stories, our shared, our intertwined stories as cultures in contact and in conflict, and how we're still working to resolve or not resolve some of those issues. But I wanted to shift a little bit. You mentioned the 13-year-old, the boy. >> Louise Erdrich: The boy. >> Male: Joe. >> Louise Erdrich: Yes. >> Male: How -- can you tell us about your process of speaking through not only a young person's voice, but a boy's voice, which you said you had not done before? >> Louise Erdrich: Well, before that it's something you -- I want to say that it's very interesting the way our work on -- Bruce's work has influenced my work, because -- >> Male: I'm done; thank you. [Laughter] That's all I wanted to hear, thank you. [Laughter] >> Louise Erdrich: No. It's very -- no, because I didn't know that I was dealing with aspects of the law. And I began -- and when Bruce told me he was working with law and literature, I thought, "I don't understand that. Where does that connect?" And that's one of the bases I had for really thinking about this particular book. I thought, "You know, this should be about law. It should be about the complexity of this." But if it's -- if I go around say in a book tour and say, "I've just written a book about jurisdictional issues." [Laughter] Exactly. You need a 13-year-old boy. >> Male: That's what I said about my books. >> Louise Erdrich: You need a 13-year-old boy. I need his -- I mean, once I discovered his voice, I was hooked into this world. And of course he's desperately in love. He's desperately in love. And he is desperately in love with -- how can I say this, the shape of his aunt. His aunt is so hot. And [laughter] he doesn't know -- he's so confused. And she's not as -- she's married to his uncle, okay, so his uncle has married this beautiful woman, and he's 13 and he just can't take his eyes off her. It's terrible. You know, there's things about him that are so affecting to me because he started being someone that I didn't really think I would come to know. I -- he really took over in a lot of ways. I mean, he is the one who stole the six pack. I didn't do it. Of course, he -- you know, he started doing things that a 13-year-old boy would do. Now, I've had brothers, of course, so I know a little bit about guys, but still this boy and his relationship with his mother. He -- it surprised me how much anger was in him. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and all of a sudden I realized, "I'm missing something about him. I'm missing that he is furious with his mother for not recovering from this attack." She should be okay for him, but she's not. >> Male: The scenes of interaction between Joe and his mother are truly, truly mesmerizing. And that's all I'm going to say. It's just amazing. Can I talk to you about religion? >> Louise Erdrich: Yes. >> Male: Christianity in particular. >> Louise Erdrich: Okay. [Laughs] >> Male: Yes. [Laughs] No; you can't talk about that. You have a very interesting relationship in your experience as a -- as my wife might say, recovering Catholic. She describes herself as a recovering Catholic. Catholicism and Christianity in general pervades so much of your work. And of course Christianity is such a major backdrop for influencing, directing and some would say, distorting the nature of the relationships between Native People and the settler societies. And as students of the law that relates to this area, they'll see how much Christian ideology actually pervades the law itself. It's imprinted. It's in the DNA of our law. And so when you write about Christianity you're actually writing about the law that deals and organizes relationships. So when you write characters, whether it's Father Damian, Sister Leapolda, all these characters that we have come to know over the years, what do you think about the church as an institution and as a force in society? >> Louise Erdrich: The Catholic Church? >> Male: Yes. >> Louise Erdrich: You know, I think it's Medieval, and I think there's an -- what's disturbing to me is the invisibility of women, sexuality, the body, the actual hostility towards women's physicality, and the ironic eroticization of -- is that a word... >> Male: It is now; yes. >> Louise Erdrich: ...eroticization, of bizarre aspects of the church. The ritual is a bizarre example of that. And I'm attached to the ritual. You know, the ritual sucks people in because it's so powerful. They came up with a powerful ritual way in the beginning. And the -- you know, I find the Catholic Church a very strange artifact. You know, and I desperately hope my daughters don't become Catholic suddenly. I would be really upset. [Laughs] But I know and love many people who are devout Catholics. So, you know, my mother is very devout, and one of my very best friends is extremely devout. And Catholicism for many people is something that they have taken control of what they believe and love about the church and the ritual. And they hold it very dear. You know, there are things about our family, we still pray to Saint Anthony if we lose something, we still have saints all up around the house. There's something that is eradicable about growing up a Catholic. >> Male: I have just a couple more questions and then we'll turn it over to the audience. And one is to -- but you speak about your increasing -- the increasing presence of Ojibwe, words, language, concepts, values, in a lot of your work. I've noticed there's this increased presence there; and this novel is no exception. In our class -- and the course "Native Americans and the Law," and "Native American Law In Literature," our students are not just reading or hearing you read from "The Round House." But we're actually reading works of Ojibwe law, written by John Burroughs, who is a very well-known indigenous law scholar from Canada. And one of the parallels that I was struck by in reading his ideas and his conceptions of how Ojibwe law is perpetuated and how it exists and how it is unfolded, reminded me of the parables in the New Testament. They're contained in story -- Obijwe law is contained and transmitted through story, and that may not surprise a lot audiences to know that how else would it have been remembered over all these years? Story is quite powerful. Were you conscious of those parallels as you write about this in terms of understanding Ojibwe law as a form of narrative in thinking about the New Testament and Jesus' parables, because they figure so prominently in your work. >> Louise Erdrich: I would -- I have to say that that didn't really occur to me. I thought more of Obijwe law -- and, you know, I have to say, that was another thing that when Native People were discovered it was never imagined that people of each tribe had their own set of very strict and very workable laws. You know, everyone had a system of law. How else would they do things? And what I talk about a little bit in this book is the law -- the story that's contained in the story, the actual story, of "The Round House." "Round House" is a place -- a ceremonial place where people meet to talk about things, to do the spiritual work, to do healing work, and a great deal of the law concern healing before it concerned punishment. And for instance, by the end of this book, there is a series of stories that describe how "The Round House" is given to the people through the death of a female Buffalo, and describes how this boy hears it as his grandfather basically talks in his sleep he hears all these stories at night. And one thing that I had always heard about and hadn't really understood was Windigo law. Windigo is -- I don't know how many people are familiar with the concept of a Windigo. Windigo is what was supposed to have inhabited someone, usually during periods of great trial, starvation, great times of difficulty in a tribe. And people would break down and it would be said that they were inhabited by this spirit of devastation that would cause them to kill, even cannibalize other people, or see people not as human beings, but as food. So the rest of the other people in the community would get together, this is part of the law, and they would try first to heal that person, which we don't do in our system of justice. They would first try to heal and then they would counsel and consult, and there would be no action taken and until every other avenue had been tried; and at that point that person would be punished, either banished or killed. And when this system of justice, which was in place in Canadian communities when this system was followed, the people -- the tribal people who had perpetrated -- who had administered the justice were then arrested. And so there are many Windigo cases, if you look them up, that occurred in Canada. And it was our traditional systems of justice. >> Male: Last question; this is -- there are a lot of Dartmouth folks in the audience, so this is a Dartmouth related question. As Richard pointed out, you arrived in 1972 with the first class that had women as first-year students. And this year, one of your daughters, Aza [assumed spelling], is going to be graduating as a Dartmouth student. When you think about these past years, and coeducation at Dartmouth, what stands out for you? >> Louise Erdrich: [Laughter] That's such a hard question to answer. There's -- you know, I -- >> Male: I know you said you didn't want them to join the Catholic Church and - >> Louise Erdrich: No, yes. >> Male: Is there a parallel that, you know, Aza goes to Dartmouth? >> Louise Erdrich: Well, I -- it was a -- when I came back it was very strange for me to come back with Aza. It was as though I was really almost living -- I could see things through her eyes. I could -- I felt the sensations that she must be having. I was very -- I felt very connected to Aza all through this experience, and I understood how important it is to have this ongoing culture here in which people connect with loved ones having had a very similar experience. But I have to say that I walk through the campus these days and it's as though I'm kind of in a dream. It was the dream that -- the dream of having women, men, people of all different backgrounds playing on the green together; you know, people out basking in the sun, but they're not all men. It's just astounding, you know. [Laughter] I was in a class today where I -- where the only man in the class was the professor, and I just about flipped, because I used to be the only woman in the entire class, including the professor. So it's profoundly moving to me to come back and to see the extraordinary sense of growth. And, you know, and I think there are some things that will never change about the Dartmouth culture, you know, as far as I can see some of the good things will never change. And this is one of the really great things, the idealism that I saw when I came there. And Professor -- it had just come just after Professor Kemeny [assumed spelling] threw the lemons at the hippies, you know, the protestor. And I became one of the people who moved off the campus and who didn't know if I should come back. And John Kemeny really brought people back, believed that this could happen, loved this place, and as a Jew, loved this place into really having this great sense of culture here and the solidarity, so. >> Male: Thank you. >> Louise Erdrich: I'm very happy to be back; to tell you the truth. Yes. >> Male: You think it's time to let the neighbors in on the conversation? >> Louise Erdrich: I sure do. >> Male: Okay. So we have microphones at either side, and we'll turn it over to you for your questions. Thank you very much. >> Male 2: First question. [ Background Sounds ] Don't be shy. >> Male: Here we go. [ Background Sounds ] >> Female: Thank you very much. Your story was riveting. I wanted to ask about your process -- writing process. You mentioned that you do research and then put it away and write the novel. So I'm wondering if you could just talk more about that, and also how long you take on average to write a novel. Do you have several going at once; so just about your writing process. >> Louise Erdrich: You know, I usually have several things going at once so that I don't have to be without a book to work on. You just left me up here. >> Male: [Inaudible]. [Laughter] >> Louise Erdrich: He... >> Male: I didn't mean to abandon you. >> Louise Erdrich: ...took the good drink. No. [Laughter] And my process is very much a whenever I can, whatever I can do process. I didn't know where you went. You were just there. There you are. And so I really -- you know, as a mother I work around what my daughters are doing. And they're very respectful of my time as well. As they get older they're more respectful. [Laughter] But I was able because I wrote at my home to have baby swing -- a traditional Ojibwe baby swing that I could work with my foot. You know, these are -- you had one of these in -- yes. These are traditional foot swings that you can put your baby -- use to put your baby to sleep while you're working. So I was able to do that and have my -- have each daughter with me for quite a long time into their childhood. But my process really is that I keep every scrap of idea. And I've found that as I grow older now with my sense of romantic justice increasingly positive I also have to really -- I have to do a lot of exercise, otherwise my brain is really dull. I mean, really writing is partly a physical process. And if you sit -- if I sat and -- if I sit for 50 years and write, I'm going to go to sleep immediately. So I have to have a lot of more exercise now. And that's part of the process. I know that sounds odd, but really it is. I have to force myself not to sit and write all the time. [ Background Sounds ] >> Male 2: Other questions; here's one. [ Background Sounds ] >> Female 2: I wanted to ask you about using fiction to deal with the issues of the women in the reservation. You said you were moved to write this about the incidents of rape and so forth. So you're using fiction to confront, you know, a very, very serious problem as opposed to just coming right out and writing articles about it, or having interviews and featuring, you know, people who have not gotten, you know, found justice. So maybe you could speak about those two different approaches and why one might be more effective, or -- yes. >> Louise Erdrich: Well, I'm a fiction writer, so that's the best I can do. You know, I'm not -- I think it would help to do a piece that is nonfiction that is fact, and that's a great thing to do. But for me the storytelling was -- storytelling is my sort of best suit. So that's what I wanted to use. And I wanted to use that emotional bond, and to show what happens to that emotional bond when one member is violated the entire family is violated. But I didn't want to do it in a way that people weren't going to read it. So I wanted it -- you know, I wanted to write a real story with a suspense, with a, you know, hook you in, you want to read it, you want to know what happens, you want to solve this. You get immersed in these people's lives. And that's why I love writing. I love writing suspense. So it's written as a kind of mystery story, because that's what I can do. Thanks. [ Background Sounds ] >> Male 3: Hi, another process question; I'm interested in the idea of Joe, the 13-year-old character, and the idea of how surprising he was to you, and you said you had brothers and so you kind of are vaguely familiar, but the idea of the degree to which characters surprise you or inform you, or what that process is like to allow a character to unfold as opposed to dictate the outlines of character. >> Louise Erdrich: Yes. Well, in this story, for instance, you know, I had this idea in mind for quite a while, but I didn't have a character who would talk about this thing that had happened. You know, I wanted to write about an ethical dilemma, and so I'd thought about and thought about all sorts of dilemmas. But it doesn't come alive. You can't just, you know, throw it out there without someone who will come and rescue you like Linda did. And Joe, this 13-year-old character, sort of -- I feel like my characters rescue me when I want to say something, and I don't have a way to say it. I really try to open myself to any voice that's going to come in and just help me out. And over the years I think when you train yourself as a writer, and I train myself as a writer, as you train yourself as an artist, you train yourself to leave open and to watch for signs of a character coming towards you. And so when Joe began to talk, I began to listen, and then I began to realize that I didn't have total control of things that he would do, that things would pop into my mind that I was -- were really unexpected. You know, and that's what -- the obsessive-compulsive part of writing is that you get probably a buzz-off, this kind of thing happening to you, you know, and when you're working away and suddenly you get some idea that doesn't come out of your own mind, it's from somewhere else, and then you're just writing, you're in a flow, a flow state. >> Male 3: So is it like automatic writing? Is it -- are [laughter] you just suspending your own consciousness and just allowing something else to happen, or do you conjure it up in a dream and then try to -- I mean, how does Joe manifest himself? >> Louise Erdrich: Yes; it's really hard to describe this, but it's you work and you work and you work. I mean, it's hard work. You work trying to try things out and things aren't working, and you've really trained yourself to do this, but it's still not working. But eventually if you fail at -- you have to fail and fail and fail and fail, and then suddenly something will happen. And you'll be -- and I'm in the flow and then I know that my narrative is going in a direction that is really -- it's taking itself there. I'm in a flow of the creation that's supposed to be happening. But it does mean disappointing failure; [laughter] enduring that I suppose. >> Male: We'll take one more question if you have one; yes. Do you want to use the microphone? [Inaudible]. >> Female 3: Okay. [Laughter] Oh, thank you. In our class we're reading "The Birch Bark House," and we were wondering whether some of it was drawn from your own memory. [ Background Sounds ] >> Louise Erdrich: Yes. Thank you. Well, now it is set in 1840, right? [Laughter] So yes, yes, I do remember -- it is. It is from memory, yes. So it's from some stories that I heard, I heard about, I read, and I thought about a long time. And actually the first part of that book where there's a girl alone on an island, guess who first heard that story, it was Aza. I told that story to my daughter, Aza many times. And all the time this girl would have different adventures. So this is my daughter over here, and I told her that story a lot, until I kind of refined it enough, and, you know, I could tell where she liked it and where she didn't like it. [Laughter] And so then finally I wrote it down. So Aza is the person who you really have to thank for that book. And also I just want to say, I really recognize Aza for getting through Dartmouth and now graduating. Yes. [ Applause ] >> Male: [Inaudible]. Yes. Oh. >> Female 4: Why do you -- last question. >> Male: Yes, go ahead. >> Female 4: [Inaudible]. Can I take just a quick answer? >> Louise Erdrich: Yes. >> Male: Go ahead [inaudible]. >> Female 4: You did say you don't want your daughters to be Catholic, so now, I mean, it's just like what do you want them to be? [Laughter] >> Louise Erdrich: Happy. >> Female: Happy. >> Male: Yes. Did you know that, very happy, right? [ Applause ]