Ahead of a trip, many of us gravitate toward books that depict the history and culture of our travel destination. But it can work the other way around, too. Sometimes a book provides such a powerful sense of place that we find ourselves longing to visit the area we read about. Some of us even [...]
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Though fiction, Hillerman's books are woven with notes of true Navajo history. In this book, sacred ground is ravaged. A noted anthropologist vanishes. Two corpses are discovered, and Navajo Tribal Policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee unearth an astonishing truth. This was the first book of many of Hillerman's I read. They apparently seeped into [...]
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By Rosemary Herbert
Canonize or confine to the dustbin of literary history? How do the editors decide?
Well may readers wonder how scholars decide which story/author to canonize and which to confine to the dustbin of literary history. This was an issue I dealt with in several books for Oxford University Press, including The Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing, for which I served as editor in chief, and the anthologies that I edited with the late Tony Hillerman, The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories and A New Omnibus of Crime. With the Companion, I had the privilege of drawing on the expertise of sixteen advisory editors. But final judgment on which stories to include in our two anthologies fell to just Tony and me. Fortunately, in Tony, I had a great resource and support in making decisions that we both took quite seriously, even while we indulged in some good laughs along the way.
Tony Hillerman is well known to readers as the author of numerous novels about Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, Navajo Tribal Policemen who solved crimes at the cultural crossroads of the American Southwest. He won numerous awards for his fiction. But while his skills as an editor are less recognized, they deserve to be celebrated, too. Take it from one who edited two anthologies with him: Tony Hillerman knew his genre. He also possessed a wonderful playfulness and sense of humor.
Both of the anthologies that Tony and I edited were designed to represent developments in the literary history of crime writing. In The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories, our goal was to illustrate the rise of detective fiction in the United States from earliest times to the close of the twentieth century. In our next book, A New Omnibus of Crime, our mission was to bring together stories representing seventy-five years of genre innovations that have occurred since Sayers published her landmark anthology, The Omnibus of Crime.
We knew it was a tall order to follow in Sayers’ footsteps, so we decided to tread carefully. We pulled together reams of short stories and, over a period of months, we pored over them earnestly in our own homes.
We were looking for stories that took steps forward from the fiction of Sayers’ day. We wanted to demonstrate how mystery writers over the last three quarters of a century allowed the love element — which had been largely shunned in Sayers’ time as a distraction from the mystery plot — to enter and enrich their stories. We sought to showcase the growth of the regional crime story by selecting some distinctly regional writings. We decided to show how some contemporary crime writers dare to leave the stain of crime on the scene instead of tidying up as thoroughly as did Sayers’ contemporaries. And of course we wanted to make sure a variety of sleuths and crime types would be found in A New Omnibus of Crime. We found stories that feature private eyes and policeman, nosey neighbors and accidental sleuths, murder in the mean streets and plots cooked up over Christmas pudding. We were just as ready to be original in our choices as we were to carefully consider stories that already stood tall in the landscape of crime and mystery writing.
Finally, we got together in Tony’s home just outside of Al
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Like most authors, when Rosemary Herbert speaks at book events about the mystery fiction anthologies she edited with Tony Hillerman, A New Omnibus of Crime and The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories and about her own new first novel, Front Page Teaser: A Liz Higgins Mystery, she always makes sure that she allows plenty of opportunity to for people to ask her questions. Lots of times authors become tired of the questions they are most frequently asked, but that it not true for Herbert, especially when the question is, “What was it like to work with Tony Hillerman?” Today – the second anniversary of Hillerman’s death – she reflects on this question.
I just love it when people ask me what it was like to work with Tony Hillerman. That’s because I never tire of remembering and sharing moments spent in his company. I always begin my answer to this question by keeping my promise to Tony. As he was reaching the end of his life, he told me two things. One was that he trusted me to make any future decisions about our two books. The other was that I should always remember to thank people who gather anywhere to hear me talk about our books. No matter how famous he became, Tony always appreciated each and every person who took an interest in his work. Hence, on behalf of Tony – and for my part, too – I thank readers of this piece for their interest in what I have to say here.
Two things leap to mind when I recall working with Tony Hillerman. The first is an image of this large, fatherly man standing in the doorway of his home near Albuquerque, New Mexico, greeting me warmly when I first arrived there to interview him for my 1994 book, The Fatal Art of Entertainment: Interviews with Mystery Writers. During an extended interview, Tony revealed much about his modest boyhood beginnings – and about his warm sense of humor – as he told me about the unusual manner in which he discovered the work of a writer who would exert a profound influence on his own work:
“Well, in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma, where I grew up, there was no library,” Tony told me. “The only way to get books was to order them from the mimeographed catalog of the state library. I’ve often said this was a guaranteed way to get a broad education. You would order all kinds of adventure stories, like Captain Blood and the Tom Swift stories, and Treasure Island. And then, weeks later, a package would arrive, and in it you would find exciting material like History of the Masonic Order in Oklahoma! But on rare occasions you would get something about the Foreign Legion or a novel about a half-breed, Australian aborigine policeman who solved crimes in the Outback. That was my introduction to Arthur Upfield.”
Just as Upfield’s sleuth, the half-aboriginal Detective Inspector Napolean Bonaparte is torn between the different worlds represented by his parentage — and uses his knowledge of both to advantage in solving crimes – Tony’s Navajo Tribal Policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee solve mysteries by understanding the uneasy intersection of contemporary Am
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I had an email earlier today, asking if I recommend Tony Hillerman's books. I've skimmed some of them and didn't like what I read. Though I've not analyzed them, I do not recommend them.
Larry Emerson, Dine (Navajo) said this about Hillerman:
"Tony Hillerman privileged & authorized himself to write about Navajos & in doing so appropriated, re-imagined, and recreated "Hillerman Navajos" at the expense of Diné realities. Hillerman created a new domain [read dominion] of knowledge while cashing in at the same time."I met Larry a few years ago when he was a post doctoral fellow here with us (American Indian Studies, University of Illinois). Consider his words "...at the expense of Dine realities." Hillerman wrote mysteries that sold well, but what do his books do for the people he wrote about? Glancing at the titles, it is clear he liked writing about sacred aspects of the Dine people, but what are the Dine realities Emerson refers to? You might read Navajo news media to get a sense of their realities, the things they contend with. Here's some sites to read:
Navajo Nation (tribal website)
Navajo Times.
Navajo Hopi Observer
This posting helped me a lot! As I've been looking over your recommended titles and wondering what your standards of selection are, I couldn't pinpoint any specific aesthetic, genre, or literary convention that consistently earns your approval. But in this posting you asked of Hillerman "what do his books do for the people he wrote about?" So the social benefits that result from publication--those are the things you look for in a book before recommending it?
Welcome back, OrganicSchool. (In January, OrganicSchool commented on "Kenneth Thomasma's books" located here: http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2007/05/kenneth-thomasmas-books-casting-call-is.html)
When I study a book, top of the list for me is whether or not the author has accurately portrayed the nation(s) or tribe(s) he/she is writing about. When I write about a book, I point out those errors.
It does not matter to me, for example, if the author has done a beautiful job of writing a particular story. Any beauty it may have is lost if there are misrepresentations and/or biased portrayals of American Indians.
American's love to love American Indians, but most of what they "love" is a fiction. A romantic, heroic, tragic image that was, generally speaking, created by a white writer.
In the development of those images, stories and characters, the realities of who American Indians were, and are, is lost or omitted.
People love American Indian folktales and historical fiction. Both confine American Indians to a long-ago time period, allowing readers to love Indians from a distance. Instead, I'd much prefer you read books about today's American Indians, written by Native writers. What do they want to tell you about? What do they deem most important?
Instead of giving your children Kenneth Thomasma's books, why not give them something by Joseph Bruchac or Cynthia Leitich Smith? If you want to give them historical fiction, give them Louise Erdrich's BIRCHBARK HOUSE.
For yourself, instead of Hillerman's mystery books, read Laura Tohe's work. Or Esther Belin. I was at a poetry reading on Friday night and heard both women read. Their writing is powerful. Take a look at it.
Thanks for the title suggestions--and yes, I'm trying to get my children interested in other books. But I struggle with the whole "Mom--this book is BORING!" issue. If Kenneth Thomasma gets them reading, I think "Yay! They're reading!" but then feel guilty after reading your blog, like I'm creating racially insensitive students because they read bad white man books. Certainly *I* have a more holistic approach to reading, but with the kids, I'm just happy to see them not using the TV! So do I force them to stop reading Thomasma (by giving away the books and replacing them with your recommendations), or do I tell them how wrong Thomasma was and just hope that they will abandon him on their own?
Ugh--as you can see, we parent educators have it pretty hard. Dilemmas, decisions, guilt! Would probably be easier if I just stuck them in public school, where they'll read "Holes" and "Bridge to Terabithia" like everyone else, but darn it, I'm trying to NOT go that way!