Love Medicine First Impressions

This first book in my Native American Literature class is called Love Medicine and it is written by Louise Erdrich. I'm not entirely sure on what I thought this book was going to be about but I figured with a title like Love Medicine it would be a book about strength and family values. The first two chapters I've read are far from my presumptions. 

The first chapter honestly reminded me of my in-laws, my wife is half Chippewa and has family in North Dakota and Montana. Recently, her great grandma died and we took a trip to Montana for the funeral. A couple of the nights we spent there could have been a live action play of the chapter "The World's Greatest Fisherman." Almost every piece of that chapter happened, the older women baked, the men drank and got into fights, and the house was very similar to the one described in the book, right down to the rusty car in the yard the kids played with. There was no "love medicine" or "fixing anything" going on at all from what I could tell, the chapter started and ended in shambles. It is the first chapter and things should will progress through the rest of the book but it seems bleak to me.

The second chapter "Saint Marie" had me questioning what I was even reading. The whole chapter seemed so surreal like it was made up or a daydream down to the very end. It was so confusing to me but it also left me wanting to know what happened after the end of it. It just seems so odd that Marie took up being "Holy" or a "Saint" so fast after being stabbed in the hand an knocked out; or why Leopolda decided to lie about Marie's vision and act as if it were true, even allowing herself to kneel before Marie.

The first 60 pages have me extremely invested in the rest of the book. It has me wanting to stay up all night reading so I can find a happy ending for these characters that are pretty damaged.