Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling is such a lovesick book. It takes place on the Flathead Indian Reservation and centers around one woman, Louise, and the men who are obsessed with her. All of them are deeply, deeply sick.
Louise is almost always either on her way home, escaping somewhere, or waiting to escape. From school, a man, a car, whatever. Louise is always moving. What's interesting is that even with them men circling her as they do, she chooses to let them catch her. She'll let a man buy her food and drive her around for a few days before loping back to her grandmother's house. A few days later she'll go back. And she will wait. And then she will leave.
All of the main characters are sick, Louise included. The love that surrounds them all has gone sour. Baptiste, the first of the obsessed, loves her with what feels like a hatred. He is hurtful, mean, and flinty. But when he leaves Louise, she is upset that she was not the one to leave him.
Another man, one who has everything he could dream of wanting, is so sick with love and desire he'd do anything. Louise enjoys his money, his gifts, his food, but not the man. The man means little to her. He wants her so badly that she finds him to be like nothing at all.
A third man wants her not at all, and this is the attraction.
Charlie Kicing Woman is the last of these men, and the only one from whose perspective see. Charlie is a cop, not that the badge helps him much. The cops dislike him for not being white, and the Indians dislike him for being spineless. He drives around, doing what work he can when he isn't thinking of Louise, who spends most of her time trying to avoid him.
There is a scene described about halfway through the book. Two boxers are ringed by headlights. Punches thud on bodies. Bodies hit the ground. The book says they looked at each other with tenderness like love. The characters hurt each other over and over. More than once someone is left broken and bloody. It doesn't feel like love.
And yet, the world around them is beautiful and chilling. There are mountains in the distance, ghosts dancing in the river, and light shining in their eyes. Some of the scenes in this book are absolutely breathtaking. In another scene, Louise is hitchhiking (something she does what feels like every other chapter) when they hit a deer. It is the most beautiful description of violence in the whole book.
If there is a cure for lovesickness, I don't know it. I can't alleviate any burning. I can't breathe any breath into the breathless. There's not much to be done about it. Love will burn through you and leap onto someone else and do the same.
Perma Red is about lovers. They aren't beautiful. The love doesn't feel good. But they are lovers nonetheless.
Earling, Debra Magpie. Perma Red. New York: BlueHen Books, 2002. Koller-Collins PS3605 .A75 P47 2002
