Love Medicine follows the intertwining lives of three central families, the Kashpaws, Lamartines, and Morrisseys, and two peripheral families, the Pillagers and the Lazarres.[1] Members of the families variously reside on the fictional Ojibwe reservations of Little No Horse and Hoopdance, and in Minneapolis-St.Paul and Fargo.[1] Erdrich employs a non-linear format in Love Medicine, and each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character, using first-person and third-person limited narration.[1]
Love Medicine begins with June Morrissey freezing to death on her way home on Easter Sunday, 1981, and ends in 1985, with the reunification of June's former husband, Gerry Nanapush, with June and Gerry's son, Lipsha.[2] Encapsulated between those two chapters are interrelated stories that proceed in loosely chronological order from 1934 onwards.[3] A pair of stories at the midpoint of the novel converge on a single day in the lives of Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre, and Nector Kashpaw, who are involved in a love triangle.[3]