This is my fourth Louise Erdrich book. Her first book was written in 1982; this one in 1986.
The action occurs mostly in a small town in North Dakota beginning in 1932 where Mary, an eleven-year-old child, is deposited from the box car she and her fourteen-year-old brother were riding after their mother abandoned them. Karl jumped back in the boxcar after leaving Mary there. Their Aunt Fritzie took Mary in who set about making herself a useful part of the butcher shop her aunt and uncle owned. Her cousin Sita felt displaced by Mary from the moment she arrived and watched as Mary took everything from her, including her best friend Celestine.
The lives of Mary, Karl, Sita, and Celestine unfold in a uniquely episodic way. The story is told from point of view of each of these characters and others. Sometimes the episode is narrated by the character and sometimes is described in the third person. Often the episode ends in absurd disaster; the disasters grow more absurd so that by the end of the book one character who has died is propped up in a truck while the beet queen is to be crowned at a festival.
The beet queen is Dot, daughter of Celestine and Karl, who had dropped into Argus for some months, long enough to impregnate Celestine. Mary and Celestine vied for the affection of Dot, who almost from birth, knew how to withhold that affection. The third person who indulged Dot was Wallace, who happened to open his door the night of a snowstorm and thus be present for Dot’s birth, saving the lives of mother and daughter. He threw a birthday party for Dot, hoping to make it the rare fun party for Dot by neutralizing the bossy Mary who usually made children miserable. His original plan didn’t work, so he got Mary so drunk she was unable to move much, but she managed to get the cake stand to whirl so fast the cake flew off.
The other books I’ve read by Erdrich center the identity of characters as Native Americans. Though some of the characters in this book are Native American, that aspect of their lives is not central to the story. It feels as though she was practicing writing here. The characters weren’t people but were there to set up the outlandish events.
Louise Erdrich, The Beet Queen, Harper Perennial, 2006 (orig published 1986), 338 pages (I listened to the audiobook). Available in the public library.