The Beet Queen

Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen, published in 1986, is a sequel to her award-winning debut novel, Love Medicine. The Beet Queen was followed by two other novels in the series, Tracks and The Bingo Palace. Though most of The Beet Queen’s characters are non-Indigenous, the series as a whole is concerned with issues facing Indigenous Americans, particularly those living on tribal lands in Minnesota and North Dakota. Characters and storylines are woven throughout the four novels so that each novel in the series supports and enriches the others, though each also stands as a complete work on its own. An acclaimed author who has received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Erdrich animates the struggles and triumphs of a disparate group of people who depend on each other for comfort and survival.

The Beet Queen focuses on the diverging lives of siblings Mary and Karl Adare, who become separated after their mother, Adelaide, abandons them in childhood. Mary and Karl have another sibling, an infant who hasn’t even been given a name when their mother departs, forcing Mary to relinquish the baby to a stranger because, at 11, she is unable to care for him. With Karl in tow, Mary seeks out her Aunt Fritzie in Argus, North Dakota, hoping to begin a new life there.