But neither Shawnee nor Lyman-deeply insecure himself-ever quite comes to life as Lipsha does, and there are myriad subplots and additional characters as Erdrich piles on the generations. How is Lipsha to cope with such a rival-though Shawnee Ray shows she cares for him too? The book is a telling study of Lipsha's passion, and the efforts he makes to win the woman-a vision quest in the deep woods ends up hilariously with him snuggling with a skunk.
But Shawnee Ray is the consort of Lyman Lamartine, the smart, opportunistic entrepreneur who gets rich by feeding on his tribespeople's bingo frenzy. He seems like a bright person of wasted promise, who drifts aimlessly between jobs taken on a whim until he returns to the reservation and falls under the spell of lovely Shawnee Ray Toose. Its hero, Lipsha Morrissey, is a young man, bastard son of irresponsible June Kashpaw and jailbird Gerry Nanapush, whose mother tried to drown him as an infant. But if The Bingo Palace is a capstone to the saga, as its interweaving of characters and half-remembered stories from previous volumes rather suggests, it disappoints. Erdrich's novels of Native American life, Love Medicine, The Beet Queen and Tracks, have earned her a secure place as an observant, intensely poetic chronicler of her people's lives, spanning much of the 20th century.
