Originally published in 2002 Perma Red has recently been reissued. Its bold new cover, featuring praise from Louise Erdrich, caught my attention. The Originally published in 2002 Perma Red has recently been reissued. Its bold new cover, featuring praise from Louise Erdrich, caught my attention. The opening pages were intriguing enough but the more I read, the more puzzled I became by the story’s unfolding events. While I enjoy novels that challenge conventions, Perma Red left me bewildered by its mishandling of its central character, Louise, who is stripped of both a personality and agency.
Set predominantly on the Flathead Indian Reservation in the 1940s, the novel orbits around Louise, a Native girl who, following her mother's death, is raised by her grandmother. Time and again Louise has run from the Ursuline schools, only to be taken away from her home and placed into another one. She’s seen as trouble, especially by Charlie Kicking Woman, a tribal officer who is fixated on Louise. Baptiste Yellow Knife, his younger cousin, is also determined to pursue Louise, employing tactics that frequently verge on violence, whether through physical force or preternatural means.
But before I talk about what went wrong (for me) with Perma Red, here are a couple of things that I liked about it. It’s very much a vibe-driven novel, and it succeeds in establishing the harsh realities of Louise’s life. The novel’s stark atmosphere reminded me of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone, Una Mannion’s A Crooked Tree, and A Prayer for Travelers by Ruchika Tomar (all of which center around girls living in rural or otherwise remote areas, with absent/dead parents, and have dealings with dubious men). In theory, I also appreciated the ambiguity permeating the narrative and that the characters, their motives and desires, remain somewhat inaccessible. I liked the imagery, which contributed to the novel’s evocative atmosphere and I did appreciate that the author, through Louise's experiences, sheds light on the violence faced by Indigenous women.
However, my enthusiasm waned as Louise's narrative veered away from her development. Instead, it fixates on the men around her, neglecting her agency and reducing her to a vessel for their desires. Must a story exploring how women are objectified, objectify its central female character? Louise's potential for growth is stymied by the overwhelming presence and focus on the story’s male characters and of ‘what’ Louise is to each of them ( the white men appear to fetishize her, Charlie resents and desires her and Baptiste..i don’t know what the fuck is going on with that dude. He wants to ‘mark’ her as his…?). There are a couple of scenes where Louise is alone, that hold possibility, especially those scenes taking place outdoors. But these are cut short, her thoughts circling back to bloody Baptiste or the other losers.
Louise’s grandmother and sister are given barely any time on the page (they have one or two lines of dialogue…) which is a pity as this novel was in dire need of some female solidarity or at least time dedicated to exploring relationships that do not hinge on the male gaze (that is underlined by the men's weird & obsessive thoughts and actions towards Louise).
I could not for the life of me understand what was going on with the characters. I’m all for keeping things enigmatic, but here the characters are made almost entirely inaccessible, which isn’t great when said characters exhibit only trashy behaviors. Sure, I appreciated that the author doesn’t resort to lazy good/bad dichotomies, especially with the character of Charlie Kicking Woman, but the narrative fails to really consider just how creepy and predatory he is. Baptiste…I really thought that the narrative had established as an obstacle, a threat even, to Louise’s happiness and self-fulfilment…but turns out they are in love...? I did not get the memo. He is appalling, he is shown to be horrendous to Louise, the kind of 'love interest' I’d expect to encounter in Colleen Hoover's fiction. The narrative fails to explore just how damaged or damaging he is, making it so that he ends up being a very thinly rendered character, one who, by the end of the novel, we are meant to feel something for, but this payoff feels unearned. Louise is ping-ponged between men who are different levels of shitty, all of whom, except Baptiste, are way too old for her.
And why are they fascinated by her? I can’t say. The narrative seems to reduce Louise to what these men view her as, that is an object whose only value lies in her body, in her appearance. Charlie Kicking Woman was giving me some serious Humbert Humbert vibes, and I was exhausted by just how much time he was given.
The novel's conclusion attempts to grant Louise agency but falls short, redeeming unsavoury male characters without addressing the harm they've caused. Charlie’s predatory nature goes unexamined, while Baptiste's abusive behavior is unjustly romanticized. Louise's supposed love for Baptiste feels forced and undermines the narrative's earlier tension and intention. I’m meant to be happy that Louise is once more reunited with the man who has taken pleasure in tormenting and neglecting her? Sure, early on, that frisson of danger could have felt like desire, love even, to a young Louise, but later on it just made no sense. Rather than making Baptiste into a fleshed-out character, the narrative and Louise condone him just through the possibility that he has come to harm. Their love story didn’t need to be cutie-patootie or easy (i'm all for the exploration of toxic dynamics), but here I swear for the whole novel I thought of Batpsite as a one-note abusive asshole who stood in the way of Louise’s freedom…but it turns out that no, she loves him and he too loves her…(?).
Maybe the characters are so inaccessible as to make them rather far-fetched. There were several instances where a character would randomly come up with a realization about someone or themselves that to me made no sense and felt very out of nowhere (like sure, whatever floats). I also was disappointed by the novel not exploring Louise’s grief or her family dynamics…it just made her character hollow.
Perma Red offers glimpses of promise with its evocative atmosphere and exploration of Indigenous experiences, but its disjointed narrative, vague characterization, and its preference for the male voices ultimately diminish the impact of Louise's story.
If Perma Red is on your radar, I recommend giving it a shot, despite my mostly negative review. Perhaps you'll be able to make sense of the characters and storyline in a way that I wasn't able to. Every reader's experience with a book is unique, and you might find aspects to appreciate that I overlooked....more