Books: A Woman With A Habit

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Four years have passed since Erdrich's husband and sometime collaborator, the author Michael Dorris, committed suicide. They were separated at the time, and he was despondent at being investigated for possible sexual abuse of one of their three daughters, who are now 12 to 17. Erdrich describes the press attention surrounding this affair as "extremely painful" and politely but firmly refuses to discuss Dorris or his death in any detail. "It's very hard for me to address, because the smallest thing I say raises such a range of complex issues with his children, his friends, his remaining family. Even if I felt entirely free, I think it's going to take me a very long time to come to terms with what happened."

Erdrich is healing, as one look at tiny Azure making contented noises in the bookstore strongly confirms. Why did the author want to become a mother again? "There isn't a why. It's so deeply biological, and it's so limbic-brain oriented. I love being a mother. I have a comfort level with a certain chaos in my life." And a certain mystery as well. She won't identify Azure's father, she says, because in the aftermath of Dorris' suicide, "why would I ever talk about the father of my children again? It seems as though to talk about people you love is almost...what did the Greeks believe? You don't want to incur the wrath of the gods."

--Reported by Andrea Sachs/Minneapolis