Love Medicine

In the beginning chapters of Love Medicine, the reader is presented with a rather peculiar, and somewhat comical, love triangle between three character: Marie, Nector, and Lulu in the year 1934.  Nector had always been in love with Lulu, but instead he settled down with Marie for reasons that he himself cannot make sense of.  In the case of Lulu, she had always assumed that Nector would marry her, and once she found out about his engagement to Marie, she found a man named Moses but left him because he refused to leave the wilderness.  This love triangle is presented in a rather humorous and intriguing way, and when such a dramatic topic is a central part of a novel, why would the author make a less than serious presentation?