What’s better than a new tale from Minneapolis writer Louise Erdrich? How about 13 new tales?

“Python’s Kiss” collects a baker’s dozen stories, nine of which previously have been published in the New Yorker and elsewhere (each is illustrated with a drawing by the author’s daughter, Aza Erdrich Abe, who also created the cover painting).

The stories are mostly not related to each other but if there’s an overarching theme, it’s that Erdrich is not afraid to take chances. “Asphodel,” for instance, ventures into science fiction for a story that may remind readers of Margaret Atwood’s experiments in that realm, such as “The Heart Goes Last.” It’s set in the near future (or, possibly, the hereafter), when eternal life has become a real possibility. Many writers would use that premise for a dystopian tale but Erdrich’s is hopeful and moving.

The flip side of that comes in the Pulitzer Prize winner’s (for “The Night Watchman”) graceful “Domain,” which also has to do with Asphodel, an “afterlife provider.” There’s a would-be murderer on the loose in “Domain” and it grapples with the limits of technology, but to me it seems to be about grief and about how much a vengeance plot may cost the avenger.

The afterlife also figures into the title story (maybe there is an overarching theme?), in which the young narrator believes she’ll live forever if she is kissed by a python. That story also tests the limits of human relationships to animals and includes this potent image of the narrator’s uncle wrestling and slaughtering a pig: “When the animal had tired itself out and stopped kicking, he’d use a razor-sharp knife to cut its throat with a technique so precise that the blood could be collected for black sausage.”

Other stories also flirt with genres and settings we might not expect Erdrich to explore. “Love of My Days,” with its spare language and tale of treachery and murder, could almost be a thriller by “No Country for Old Men” filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen. There are fantastic elements in “Borsalino,” which is set in the haunted city of Venice and in which the title character, a hat, seems to possess magical powers (so does the titular object in “The Stone”). And there’s a subtle mystery at the core of “Amelia,” which is mostly set at a Kentucky Fried Chicken and which, among many other things, reminds us what surprising creatures human beings are.

American Indian author Billy-Ray Belcourt figures in “The Feral Troubadour,” one of a few stories that involve disruptive cats. Ultimately, that troubadour cat prompts this gorgeous observation from the narrator of the story: “Can it be that all of us upon waking sometimes feel malformed or broken, foolish, as we huddle in our nests all over the earth? Perhaps, I think, this pit of shame without perspective is the true human connection.”

My favorite tale in “Python’s Kiss” is “Wedding Dresses,” and not just because part of it takes place at the best place for sesame noodles, Rainbow Chinese on Eat Street in Minneapolis.

The inventive story begins with a leak in Dora’s basement that destroys her four wedding dresses. Her nosy niece Martha, who is 11, is fascinated by the dresses and wants to know the stories behind them, which Dora reluctantly agrees to share while also concealing details that she reveals only to us.

“Wedding Dresses” is just 20 swift pages long but, in her keeping secrets from her niece, there’s a poignant sense that there is ugliness that Dora cannot run from. But, at least, she can confide in strangers — that is, us.

____

Python’s Kiss

By: Louise Erdrich.

Publisher: Harper, 222 pages.

©2026 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.