Dec 18, 2009

The Red Convertible | Introduction

‘‘The Red Convertible,’’ one of Louise Erdrich's most anthologized short stories, is the second chapter of her debut novel Love Medicine. The novel is a collection of fourteen stories bound by common characters and themes. When Holt published it in 1984, it became a bestseller that won awards such as the National Book Critics Circle Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters award for best first fiction. Since its publication, it has been translated into eighteen languages. In 1993, Erdrich expanded the book by four more stories. Love Medicine is the first in Erdrich's series of novels portraying twentieth-century Chippewa life in North Dakota.

‘‘The Red Convertible’’ functions as a stand-alone story and is often selected by instructors to introduce Erdrich's writing to students. In this story of brothers struggling to cope with their changing relationship and the changing world, Erdrich demonstrates the difficulties many Vietnam veterans and their families faced after the war.

The Red Convertible Summary

‘‘The Red Convertible’’ is narrated by Lyman Lamartine, a member of the Chippewa tribe who lives on a reservation with his family. He tells a story from his recent past about his older half-brother, Henry. As Lyman tells the story, the year is 1974.

Lyman was able to buy a red convertible Oldsmobile with his brother because he had always been good with money. He started working as a dishwasher at the Joliet Cafe when he was fifteen, and at the age, of sixteen, he became the cafe's owner. Soon after, it was destroyed by a tornado.

On impulse, Lyman and Henry bought the car on a visit to Winnipeg. That summer, they took the car on a trip without an itinerary or any plans. They traveled around Montana for half the summer before picking up a Native-American girl named Susy, who was hitchhiking home to Alaska. They agreed to take her, and her family welcomed them for the rest of the summer. The brothers shared good times before returning home. They went back home so that Henry, who had enlisted in the Marines, could begin his military service. After training and briefly visiting his family at... » Complete The Red Convertible Summary