Where other novelists might agree with Aristotle that representative actions should be probable, Erdrich relishes including accidents into her works. During their trapeze act the main tent pole is struck by lightning, and Anna Shlick's first husband dies as the two are in the air; Jack is lying on a pedestal in convent grounds making love to Eleanor when Leopolda comes out to pray and does not sense or see him; Gerry is picked up as a hitchhiker during a snowstorm and is not recognized by his former wife; Jack leaves his plow and the road in the middle of the same storm and finds the stalled car with his son and Lipsha Morrissey in it in a field when he can barely see; and Leopolda is struck by lightning, killed and seemingly carried away. By no means is this list of improbable events complete, but rather than...