The cure is built directly into the narrative structure the mechanism of change is dramatized, not described. What brings Faye out of her melancholic state? What we know from Part Four is only that Faye has changed: her perception of reality has shifted toward an Ojibwe worldview, she has a new vision of her relationship with the dead, and she is more open to the unfolding experiences of her life.

But Faye's consciousness is not open to us during the storytelling, nor when the narrative returns to her focalization in Part Four does she mention any response to the stories. We know from the first chapter of Part Two that Faye and her mother have come to the reservation to return the Ojibwe ceremonial drum Faye discovered in a New England attic we know they form part of the group listening to Bernard's stories-listening, that is, to the stories we are reading. But we know nothing-or almost nothing-about Faye in these intervening sections.

The stories in Part Two are told by Bernard, a man on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota his tales are succeeded in Part Three by the story of a young girl named Shawnee and her siblings on the same reservation. Something has changed her-and we have only Parts Two and Three to look to for explanation. The novel sets the following puzzle for readers: Part One is narrated by Faye Travers, a woman whose tenacious attachment to her dead sister prevents her from engaging fully with the events of her own life Part Four presents a transformed Faye, with a new attitude that enables her to connect creatively with the outside world. Rather, the narrative structure, with its unexplained breaks and juxtapositions, conveys the means of the protagonist's change.

To say that the story of Louise Erdrich's The Painted Drum (2005) is subtly told would be an understatement I argue that the transformation of the protagonist, the process central to this novel, is not described at all.

The painted drum book review