I grew up in Gallup, New Mexico, self-proclaimed "Indian Capital of the World."
Years
and years ago, I read many, though not all, of murder mystery author
Tony Hillerman's Chee and Leaphorn novels, about two Navajo Tribal
Police officers, (I also read two non-Big Rez murder mysteries of his.)
Hillerman
has long come off as sympathetic to Navajos in particular, and American
Indians of the Southwest in general, as people. Going beyond oater dime
novelist Louis L'Amour, who said more than once if he wrote about a
place, "it was there," with Hillerman, not only was the place there, but
so were the sociology and culture.
Well, recently, for various
reasons, I started reading some of Hillerman again. But, after "Sacred
Clowns," I may have hit a wall. An edited version of my Goodreads review
will explain why.
Sacred Clowns by Tony Hillerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
On my "formula" for mid-level fiction reviews?
Characters 4.25-4.5
Plot 4.5
Dialogue 4-4.25
I'll take that to 4.5 or so overall but, round down due to an error.
Nope,
it's "dropped" to 3 stars due to other issues listed at bottom. Some
are specific to this book; others, the majority, apply to the Hillerman
"canon" in general. I'm going to get to that after a condensed version
of the first part.
On characters, Jim Chee as acting sergeant
shows a first round of character development within the Chee-Leaphorn
books, accepting enough of Lt. Joe Leaphorn's experience-developed
wisdom to actually follow some rules. He also finds out that he may not
be enough of a traditionalist to satisfy old-time hataałii
(usually rendered by Hillerman as "shaman" or similar) to become one
himself, complexifying his look at Janet Pete as too much of a "city
Indian." One book later than Coyote Waits and two earlier than First
Eagle, when you look at the series, you can see this "character plot
line" developing. In addition to their hot-and-cold at times, the
ethical playoff late in this story is good. As with widower Leaphorn's
quasi?-romantic relationship with Prof. Bourebonette, this is Hillerman
writing a generally internally consistent set of stories.
...
St. Bonaventure
in Thoreau? It was there when I was growing up in Gallup eons ago. Not
sure if it's the same church building today or not. Back then, it had a
wood-plank floor that doubled as a roller skating rink, including being
rented out; my church's youth group went out there more than once. I
don't know if Gallup didn't have a roller rink then, or it was too big
to rent to small groups, or what. (Or so I thought it was there. Teh
Google lists skating in Gallup itself and not in Thoreau today, but
Google Maps with "roller skating Thoreau NM" pointed to the Thoreau
Community Center. Maybe skating moved there, or maybe that was the
original church building.)
This all is why Hillerman is not
dime-novelist Louis L'Amour, who used to brag that if a place was listed
in one of his novels, it's there. With Hillerman, the people and
culture are there, too.
But now, the problems start, beginning with smaller ones and working to bigger.
First,
he mentions an Iyanbito and Iyanbito Chapter House south of Gallup [pg
121, hardcover], and the only one I am familiar with is the one to the
east. Besides, the Red Rock Chapter House is to Gallup's south. See for yourself. I have driven past Iyanbito many, many times. It has an exit on I-40. This is why I double-taked.
Sorry,
Tony, but you don't explain why you "moved" Iyanbito if deliberate.
And, a basic error otherwise? On the border on ratings, that gets you
bumped down on the Navajo authenticity issue. That said, in this Smithsonian piece
he admits to "shuffling around" places to meet his needs, but? There
was no need for this. Nor for calling the Zuni Drive-In the Gallup
Drive-In. Was it going to sue? It closed in 1982, anyway, so it
couldn't. (I saw "Star Wars" there as a kid.)
There's an issue or
two in other Hillerman novels that generally hold him at four stars,
not five. For instance, he talks about "the Tuba City type of Navajo," a
description both sociological, in terms of demeanor, and
physiologically, in terms of build, as if genes work that
deterministically and there's no outbreeding into that small area. And,
of course, none of that is true.
Now, to a bigger issue, expressed in this novel, and I think one or two others.
That is his take on the American Indian Movement
. Yes, many people within Navajo leadership didn't like it. That's
because it challenged their authority, just as on the Sioux
reservations. Calling its leadership, like Dennis Banks and Russell
Means, "city Indians," comes off as a bit, or more, condescending. And,
it's a lie. Banks was born on a reservation in Minnesota. Means was born
on a reservation in South Dakota. Both Bellencourts were born on
reservations. Banks was forcefully removed to a BIA boarding school at
age 5. Means' parents moved to San Francisco at age 3 to escape poverty;
the Bellencourt family moved to Minneapolis when older brother Vernon
was 16.
This comes off sounding like my dad. (I remember when AIM
came to Gallup.) I've outgrown that, Tony. This review goes down to
three stars, and I read you more skeptically on "flavor of the
Southwest" in the future.
For a truly nuanced and insightful book on AIM, especially in the Siouxan heartland of its operations, read "The Unquiet Grave."
And, I realized I have now been "triggered," or if I accept that something like free will exists (I do, if you emphasize the "something like" and that it is not necessarily totally conscious), I have self-triggered.
First,
the quasi-sneer about "city Indian" (also Blizzard, the "city Indian"
Cheyenne from Chicago BIA agent in this novel) surely affects
Hillerman's authorial stance toward Janet Pete throughout the entire
series of his novels. He doesn't totally throw her under the bus when he
has the final break-up between her and Chee, but he does entirely write
her out of future books. Did his attitude toward "city Indians" in
general harden as he grew older?
Related? As I think more
skeptically, while Hillerman may not totally paint a romantic Rousselian
noble savage view of reservation Navajo life, the toes of one of his
two feet, at minimum, are in that swamp. And I use that word
deliberately. In reality, not only is the poverty worse than he
portrays, but bits of it are to some degree self-inflicted. Navajos
overgrazed the land badly enough a century ago that, for this reason as
well as price controls, Navajo sheep, like Iowa hogs, were "culled" as
part of the Agricultural Adjustment Act in the 1930s. There's some
degree of overgrazing again. Beyond that, as disagreements between
chapters over Bears Ears have shown, there's not a "unified Navajo
stance" on many things. In either case, on the land, as he has Chee
drive by the pivot irrigation lands of what is today Navajo Agricultural
Products Inc, and contrast them with a bit of ruefulness to the buttes
and mesas, he overlooks the sheepherding.
In other words, to mash up Colbert and a cliche? "Truth is truthier than fiction."
Another
issue? I think Hillerman has a generally bilagaana take on frybread,
which is a flash point among many modern American Indians of many
tribes. That's
also not specific to this book, but, I never recall Chee, as an
"authentic" Navajo, in any of my past Hillerman reading, saying it's not
authentic Navajo food.
One other issue. One of Hillerman's novels is entirely on the
Zuni reservation. Others have Hopi connections. But? Even though the Ute
Mountain Ute reservation is directly north of the New Mexico portion of
the Big Rez, I'm unaware of any Ute characters in any of his novels.
Also not mentioned, IIRC? The Paiutes who actually live on the Utah
strip portion of the Big Rez. (Indeed, some of these Paiutes have Navajo
surnames like Begay or Yazzie.)
One OTHER other issue. Why,
given Leaphorn's strident antipathy to alcohol, after his wife's death,
does Hillerman name his new female interest Bourebonette? Yes, the
initial "e" hides it, but really? Something like "bourbon"? Am I the
first to notice this?
Anyway, beyond being self-triggered, I
realized my nostalgia leading me to re-read Hillerman wasn't as much
nostalgia as escapism — not the escapism of reading fiction, but real
escapism, the desire to move out of Tex-ass, with the New Mexico of my
childhood years a reasonable option financially — should I get a
pre-retirement job there — among today's US Southwest and Western
states.
Expanding beyond my main blog, this probably isn't that likely. The sewer of U.S. job hunting sites gets worse and worse all the time. And, I'm not well-enough off to say that post-retirement moving will be easy.
View all my reviews
