NONFICTION - May 28, 1995

THE BLUE JAY’S DANCE: A Birth Year by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins: $21; 240 pp.) Six children, two writer-parents and a farmhouse in New Hampshire and still my overwhelming impression of Louise Erdrich’s life is how grateful she is and how little whining she does. “No matter what life throws at me--and I’ve had far more difficult obstacles than the intense experience of having children--I expect and offer no excuses.” So, this book is really about working and having children, staying alert and somewhat focused through the first year of a child’s life. Not losing everything you ever thought you wanted to accomplish but being flexible enough to allow the experience of having children to change you. One of my favorites in this collection of somewhat disjointed observations is Erdrich’s description of her husband’s hair (the smell of which helps her through labor!): “Besides the cut flowers he sacrifices his lunches to afford, the purchase of bags of licorice, the plumping of pillows, steaming of fish, searching out of chic maternity dresses, taking over of work, listening to complaints and simply worrying, there was my husband’s hair.” And it goes on: “a deepening chestnut that gleams Modoc black from his father. . . .” “Blue Jay’s Dance” refers to the “manic, successful jig--cocky, exuberant, entirely a bluff,” that Erdrich has noticed. “That dance,” she writes, “makes me clench down hard on life.”