"The Red Convertible" serves as the second chapter of Erdrich's acclaimed debut novel, Love Medicine. Critics are impressed by the novel's presentation of modern Native American life and of the diversity among people within a single culture. Louise Flavin of Critique remarks, "Erdrich's Love Medicine, while nontraditional in many ways, gives a compassionate, humanistic account of the lives of reservation Indians without glorifying their culture yet without demeaning them in their weaknesses and failure." Erdrich (who is part Chippewa and part German-American) is regarded as a bridge between the Native American experience and the white experience. In North Dakota Quarterly, James Ruppert observes:

Love Medicine is a dazzling, personal, intense novel of survivors who struggle to define their own identities and fates in a world of mystery and human frailty. In her writing, Louise Erdrich both protects and celebrates this world. To assume effectively the roles...