Question 1

What is the Ojibwe tradition of giving a child that LaRose draws on?

Accepted Answer

The practice of giving a child to a grieving family as a way of compensating for a death — which the novel describes as an old Ojibwe practice — has historical precedents in various Native American traditions, though the specific practice and its forms varied significantly across different tribes and different historical periods. In the novel, Landreaux Iron understands the practice as a way of mending the tear that Dusty's death has made in the fabric of relationships between the two families: the child LaRose, who is given to the Ravich family, is understood to carry something of Dusty's spirit as well as his own identity, and his movement between the two families across the novel is the vehicle through which both families' grief is worked out. Erdrich has said that she researched historical accounts of child-giving practices in various Native American traditions while writing the novel, and that the practice she describes is a composite of various historical forms rather than the specific practice of any single tribe; the tradition is presented in the novel as a living possibility rather than a historical relic, something that Landreaux and Emmaline understand as still available to them even in 2001.

Question 2

How does LaRose compare to The Round House?

Accepted Answer

LaRose and The Round House are companion novels — both are set on the same North Dakota reservation, both are organized around a violent death and the question of how the community responds to that death — but they are very different in tone and structure. The Round House is a coming-of-age novel narrated by a teenage boy; its emotional center is anger, and its plot is organized around Joe Coutts's investigation and the act of revenge that fills the gap left by the legal system's failure. LaRose is a more ensemble novel with multiple points of view; its emotional center is grief, and its structure is organized around the slow work of healing that the child LaRose performs by moving between the two families. Where The Round House is taut and thriller-like in its structure, LaRose is more expansive and more concerned with the long aftermath of a death than with the immediate crisis.

Question 3

What is LaRose's significance as a character?

Accepted Answer

LaRose — the five-year-old boy who is given to the Ravich family as a form of traditional compensation — is the novel's most unusual figure: a child who understands intuitively, without being told, that his job is to be the connection between the two families, to carry love and memory between them, and to be the living replacement for the dead boy Dusty without ceasing to be himself. The novel traces the psychological complexity of this position with great care: LaRose is not broken by what is asked of him, but he is shaped by it in ways that the novel charts over five years. He develops a sensitivity to the emotional needs of the adults around him that is both a gift and a burden; he becomes the person in both families who can move freely between grief and love, between the Irons' guilt and the Raviches' loss. Erdrich has described LaRose as a character who embodies the possibility of healing that the novel explores: not the resolution of grief (neither family stops mourning Dusty) but the continuation of life alongside grief, which is what healing actually looks like.

LaRose Reading Order

Complete LaRose Book List

LaRose

The Round House

Love Medicine

LaRose — Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Ojibwe tradition of giving a child that LaRose draws on?

How does LaRose compare to The Round House?

What is LaRose's significance as a character?

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