Louise Erdrich — The Rakish Interview

In 1986 you told the Chicago Tribune—

Oh, dear, 1986? That’s a long time ago to remember…

No, no, it’s nothing to worry about. You told the Chicago Tribune that your “fondest hope” was that people would be reading you in 10 or 20 years as someone who had written about the American experience in all of its diversity. Has that hope been realized?

My fondest hope—well, my fondest hope as a writer. I don’t know if I’ve done that. I’ve written books that I needed to write, you write what you have to write. But that particular theme is no less important now than it was then. The diversity of people and their experiences in this country absolutely deserves our attention, especially now.

Is it true that Minnesota has the largest urban Native population in the country?

That may be true, I know that we’re way up there. We certainly have one of the largest concentrations of Native people. The need for community building and for an outlet for creative expression for Native people here is very real.

You’ve done a lot for Native writers, and for new and unknown writers. You’ve participated at the Loft and other venues and drawn crowds for writers who would otherwise not necessarily have had wide audiences.

I was peripherally involved in the Loft years ago. Now that energy goes more in the direction of the bookstore, to create a community of encouragement for writers, Native and non-Native writers, to help writers get read and to bring people together in certain ways. That’s the emphasis.

And how are you dealing with the current political situation?

Well, The Master Butchers Singing Club is a book about war. My grandfather fought in the trenches of World War I. I have to talk about that. It’s the biggest privilege to be on a book tour right now and to be asked how I feel about the war, because I definitely want to answer that question. I’m one of the Code Pink people, speaking out against this war. I believe war is degradation, it’s a terrible thing. Virginia Woolf called for an end to war in Three Guineas. She spoke out against war as an answer to conflict. Because war is an assault on humanity, it’s an assault on children. War is human degradation. Whether you’re talking about the first or second World Wars, or this pending war against Iraq. Look at the devastation that was caused by the war this nation waged against Native Americans. I’m not a naive person, and I do realize that there are times when war is inevitable, but I do not believe this is one of those times. I do not believe that the stakes are so high that there are not other ways Saddam Hussein could be contained. So this is very important to me, to speak about this, and to speak about it in connection with this book, which begins in the wake of the manslaughter of World War I.

I have this odd sense that as a nation of consumers we are being sold a war. The war is pitched and hyped to us every day. We are supposed to buy into it just the way it was “un-American” not to spend money after 9/11. Not buying this war is not un-American to my mind. Not buying it is exercising the freedom of conscience we have always stood for. It is very American to refuse a con job.