ERDRICH: Strangely, I think it is. I am surrounded by an abundance of family and friends, and yet I am alone with the writing. And that is perfect.
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About the book
About the Revision
THE ORIGINAL ANTELOPE WIFE was written in the 1990s; because I rarely read my books after they are published, I didn’t return to this one until three years ago. When I did read the original, I was astonished that I’d dropped the powerful characters from the first thirty pages. Having discovered their flawed depth, I wanted them back. Once I started thinking of them and sketching out their lives, a different, overwhelmingly insistent vision of the book took shape. The voices I’d abandoned, new sources of humor, characters I thought I had given up, soon gripped me.
Revising this book was like repairing an old piece of beadwork. I stitched in new connections and added entirely new chapters. I dropped some chaos but kept some of the mistakes. Ojibwe floral beadwork usually employs one sinuous vine with marvelously inventive offshoots. That became my pattern for the book. The Antelope Woman’s narrative would be the vine, the chapters the flowers— some true to life, some wildly dreamlike, some a mixture of real and surreal.
It has taken me twenty years to understand where I was going when I first started The Antelope Wife. I think this was how the book was supposed to be written all along. Still, I have tenderness for the old version. It seems to me that the characters were patiently waiting for me to return and continue with their stories.
— Louise