I really liked this because Marie and Nector met each other with Nector caring a pair of geese that he had killed. 'You see I thought love got easier over the years so it didn't hurt so bad when it hurt, or feel so good when it felt good.' The title of the book specifically deals with a section where a grandson tries to fix his grandfather's love for his grandmother so that he will cease chasing after Lulu. Love Medicine was awarded the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award. Both stories are about family, the land and the myths that make up family stories. Having just finished Absalom, Absalom!, I can see the similarity. Wikipedia mentions that this book is written in the tradition of Faulkner. I read this book because the author was born in Little Falls, Minnesota. The story is set in North Dakota at the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation but also Fargo and Minneapolis but mostly the reservation. Other themes include tricksters, abandonment, connection to the land, search for identity, self knowledge and survival. The love triangle of Lulu, Marie and Nector is another theme as well as homecoming.

She is the figure that holds the remaining novel together. She is walking back to the reservation in a spring snowstorm. The book begins with June Morrisey in June of 1981. The story is told in a storytelling manner and each chapter is told by a different person.

It was revised and expanded in 1993 but I read the 1984 edition. Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich is the author's first novel, published in 1984.

Love medicine author