Family Matters

An essay I was assigned in my Compisition II class was required to contain a thesis statement as a foundation for this particular “book report”. I chose the book, “Love Medicine” by Loise Erdrich.

Family Matters
​Many individuals may think to themselves that their family is crazy or weird at one point in time or another�"some more, some less. Love Medicine tells the tale of a family that may very well have us all beat. What started as a personal interest in reading a book whose author decided to base its storyline in good ‘ole Minnesota, quickly turned into a sense of realization laced with relief, that although this story is fictional, all families have their secrets, dilemmas, fights, make-ups, break-ups, deaths, tragedies, and triumphs. The key is to embrace it all, the good and the bad, no matter what the circumstance, for someday we will lose the ones closest to us, whether we are ready for that day or not.
​Louise Erdrich wastes little to no time making it clear to the reader that a death in the family causes much pain and heartache. However, she also intertwines love and joy within such pain by reminiscing the memorable times each relative experienced with the deceased character, June. Naturally, the grief-flooded memories can end up on opposite ends of the spectrum at times.
​Albertine was very fond of her Aunt June and felt compellingly defensive after her mother spoke ill of June’s death by blatantly putting the blame on her alcohol consumption. Being close to her Aunt, Albertine’s intuition told her that even if she were drunk, it would not have hindered her awareness of the impending snow storm June was thought to have perished in. However, Albertine and her mother Zelda, along with Albertine’s other Aunt, Aurelia, exchanged many more memories, laughing at some and frowning at others, while they sat in the kitchen awaiting the arrival of other members of the family.
​Later, June’s son, King, and his wife, Lynette, arrive and waste no time revealing how dysfunctional and out of sorts a family can really be. What starts as a small dispute over a “favorite” hat that Lynette had bought for her husband, escalates into Albertine discovering King’s attempts to drown Lynette by “pushing her face in the sink of cold dishwater”, and finally ending with some make-up love-making in the same car that King had also ripped the mirror off and used it to strike the windshield and windows while his wife sat locked away inside it not long before. Dysfunctional may be an understatement in this case.
​Another character in the story, Lulu, who’s only relation is by having affairs with many of the men in the family, bore many children�"8 to be exact�"with whom only a couple were fathered by a husband of her own and not someone else’s. At one point, Lulu told one of these men who she would be marrying, setting him off to the point where he set her house on fire, forcing her to run inside to save her son and burning all of her hair off in the process. She then went on to live in a sort of tent, until the town held a meeting and she threatened to name off every man who fathered each one of her sons, leading them to build her a very nice, brand new home. Chaos, to say the least.
​The way Louise Erdrich intertwines the love along with the hate throughout this story is disheartening, yet empowering. It is a stark reminder of how life cannot be predicted or planned. The harsh reality of her words reminds the reader that family is family, through the ups and the downs; sometimes family is all we have, and in life and in death, we should cherish all of the memories, the good and the bad.

Author's Note

The assignment was to create a thesis statement and use it to compile an essay pertaining to the book we chose.