The stories reveal fifty years in the lives of the Kashpaw and Lamartine families from the 1930s to the 1980s, as they interact, intermarry, and ultimately try to figure out who they have become. Through her selection of details and her often lyrical descriptions, Erdrich creates vibrant local settings within which her characters tell their stories in lively, colloquial voices. Emotional, matter-of-fact, tormented, and sometimes angry, the characters are equally well drawn for both men and women.

The separate stories of Marie and Nector Kashpaw, which come together when they marry, occupy much of the very early years covered by the collection, but their stories also involve Lulu Lamartine, with whom Nector has a long affair. In the 1980s, Marie and Nector's "grandson," Lipsha Morrissey, tries to create a "love medicine" for his elderly grandparents in an old age home, a story filled with ironies and, ultimately, dark humor. Between these stories are the stories of other children, their parents, and their friends, as they try to deal with the immediate aftermath of war, the harshness of the prison system, unemployment, and poverty.

As the characters overlap and interact throughout the stories, which shift back and forth in time and across generations, the author conveys Chippewa culture, the families' resistance to and acceptance of change, the roles of strong women in holding families together, the hostility towards the federal government, and the sometimes overwhelming despair of those who live on the reservation. The characters' sense of pride and endurance elevate even the saddest and most wrenching stories, however, while the bleak humor keeps them from becoming morbid or sentimental. Dramatic, thoughtful, and powerful, Erdrich's collection creates an unforgettable portrait of two families who represent a changing Chippewa nation. Mary Whipple