Shadow Tag-Louise Erdrich

Shadow Tag
Louise Erdrich
Harper, Feb 1 2011, $14.99
ISBN: 9780061536106

In Minneapolis, the America family lives in a nice home. The father Gil is a famous Native American artist whose graphic model is his wife Irene the historian, an Ojibwa. The couple has three children (Florian, Riel and Stony). However, Gil has failed to break out of a stereotype while Irene slowly works on her dissertation on the painter George Catlin.

The assimilated middle class couple has hidden family issues. Gil, whose Native American father died in Nam, abuses their children while Irene ignores his nastiness behind the veneer of wine. She becomes active when she realizes he has been reading her diary. However, unlike her mother an AIM protestor who would have got in his face, Irene begins writing two dairies; the blue one she hides from Gil while in the other she describes an affair that does not exist to toy with her spouse who she believes betrayed her trust. As she strives to end their marriage, he vigorously wants to save it.

This is not an easy read as the adults emotionally torture each other at exorbitant costs to themselves and their three children. The character based story line of this psychological family drama contains three subplots: entries from Irene’s two diaries and a third person account of the dysfunctional family. Although profound, readers will have hard time empathizing with any of the America family, even the six years old youngest offspring, as none of the quintet seems to care what anyone else needs and for the most part there is never a truly happy moment.

Harriet Klausner