Sunday, February 17, 2008

The Reptile Garden

The Reptile Garden was the fiction piece in The New Yorker a few issues back. I read the short story on the plane to Florida and loved it. I love it when The New Yorker introduces me to writers that I haven't heard of or read before, like Marisa Silver and now Louise Erdrich. The story really stuck with me, so I thought I would share it with anyone who might be interested. Also, for you Minnesotans, the author Louise Erdrich owns a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis called BirchBark Books.

6 comments:

Erin said...

I know who Louise Erdrich is. I read her book "Love Medicine" for Modern Fiction. She also came to Minneapolis recently with her sisters who are also writers. I didn't LOVE "Love Medicine" (which is funny considering its name) but it was an okay book.

Lindsay said...

Let me know what you think of the short story if you read it. So would you say Love Medicine is worth reading?

I noticed on the bookstore website that a woman with her same name just had a reading there...I assumed it was her sister. Does she have two sisters who are writers? Hmmm...

Do you think we could take them?

Lindsay said...

Sorry. To correct that last comment, I saw that a woman with the same last name recently had a reading there. If it was a woman with her same name (Louise Erdrich), I would assume it was her, not her sister.

Erin said...

I think you might like Love Medicine. It's similar to Hundred Years of Solitude in the fact that it concentrates on a family (well--more like two rival/connected families) through the ages. It shifts perspectives and you won't know all the relationships until the end. It helps if you have a book with a family tree. My copy was the only one if the class without that essential part. I was forced to make my own family tree which had statements like this: LULU --> lots of boys

Anonymous said...

Hi Lindsay,
Came across this post after your dad said to look at your new sunglasses (love them, by the way :)
I was a fan of her ex-husband, Michael Dorris's writing, and came to enjoy Louise's through reading him. I'm not sure if you've done any research into their story, but it's interesting and sad. The Broken Cord is on my to-read list. I especially enjoyed A Yellow Raft in Blue Water.
Now, I'll have to see if I have that issue of the New Yorker floating around here. . .
Kudos on finding a new author you enjoy; I love when that happens. Gives me an itch to go read everything they've written.

Amanda (LeFranc)

Lindsay said...

Amanda, I'll have to check those other works out. I'm about to start this book called The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz that I am pretty excited about, but I'll add them to my own to-read list. Now I'm also intrigued as to their personal history, so I'll look into that as well. Thanks!