The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich, 1981
The magic trick:
Turning the personal into the historical
Really excited to kick off a full week of Louise Erdrich stories.
My unpopular opinion I carried into this week: I’ve never been all that wowed by the few Erdrich stories I’ve read. Always felt her rep outpaced my appreciation.
OK, so this week’s set of stories started to change that. Today’s feature, “The Red Convertible,” is a stone cold classic.
It’s an excellent example of taking the personal and expanding it into the historical. The story is about two brothers – both members of the Chippewa tribe. The younger is our narrator; the older is his idol/best friend. That relationship is changed when the elder brother is sent off to Vietnam. He returns home changed and not for the better. The story continues to focus on the brothers’ relationship, but the injection of a real-life event experienced by millions both expands the scope and specifies the meaning at the same time.
And that’s quite a trick on Erdrich’s part.
The selection:
When he came home, though, Henry was very different, and I’ll say this: the change was no good. You could hardly expect him to change for the better, I know. But he was quiet, so quiet, and never comfortable sitting still anywhere but always up and moving around.
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