"Nearly every novel Louise Erdrich has published began life as a short story. "I am certain that I have come to the end," she explains in the preface to "The Red Convertible," her collection of fabulously sexy new and selected tales. "But the stories are rarely finished with me. They gather force and weight and complexity." And then -- presumably -- they take flight.

This is a fascinating description of a novelist at work, but it sells these short stories short. Compiled from 30 years of work, spanning an enormous variety of registers -- from a rascally farce to the high lonesome tragedy of "Love Medicine" -- "The Red Convertible" reveals Erdrich to be one of America's finest writers of short fiction.

She starts with big themes. The tales in this book revolve around the folly and fever of desire, the complicated ties of family, the gravitational tug of human weakness. You can count on things going awry in an Erdrich story -- often as a combination of the above."

Get the Story:
Raw power (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 1/10)

Another Review:
Giving voice to a people (The Baltimore Sun 1/11)

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Review: 'The Red Convertible' from Louise Erdrich (1/6)