10 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
habit of adding epigraphs, which often contain disturbing historical information,
to sections of their poems.
On 21 April 1997 The New York Times published an article by Dinitia Smith,
“The Indian in Literature Is Catching Up,” in which Sarris is quoted as delineat-
ing a major difference in the generations of Native American writers: “Momaday
and Silko were very spiritual. But Erdrich was dealing with the drinking and
funkiness we all know from everyday life. Before then, Indian writers didn’t want
to think of Indians as fooling around, cheating on each other, the way everyone
else does.” While they are heavily influenced by Momaday, Silko, Welch, Ortiz,
and Rose, the later writers are less likely to set their works on reservations
(Erdrich is a notable exception) and are more likely to include pop-culture refer-
ences and to pepper their work with humor of all sorts—satire, farce, dark com-
edy, and belly laughs—a practice that reaches back many centuries in traditional
American Indian storytelling.
Native American writers also experiment with techniques often associated
with Postmodernism. While employing many native tropes and themes, especially
the use of tricksters, the work of the Ojibwa poet and novelist Gerald Vizenor is
also markedly Postmodernist—playful and ironic as it dismantles the concept of,
and stereotypes surrounding, the idea of Indian. Vizenor’s earliest novel, Darkness
in Saint Louis Bearheart (revised as Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles, 1990)—one
of the few science-fiction novels by a native writer—appeared in 1978, but he
only began to receive significant attention for his fiction in the 1990s. He has also
published several works of literary criticism, typically from a mixed Postmodern-
ist and Native American perspective.
Other writers have combined activism for Native American rights with
other movements for social justice. Hogan, for example, in novels such as
Mean Spirit (1990), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Solar Storms (1995);
in volumes of poetry such as Seeing through the Sun (1985), an American
Book Award winner; in the essays in Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Liv-
ing World (1995); and in her memoir, The Woman Who Watches over the World
(2001), writes from a feminist perspective on women’s roles, environmental
issues, and poverty.
Among the younger writers, Sarris has spent time as a street-gang member,
a model, an actor (his best-known role was on the television series CHiPs), an
academic who earned tenure at UCLA in one year, and a tribal chief. His schol-
arly books, such as Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American
Indian Texts (1993), combine personal narrative with academic critique. In Mabel
McKay: Weaving the Dream (1994) he tells the story of a Pomo healer and basket
maker who had several works on display in the Smithsonian Institution but also
peeled apples six days a week at a cannery during harvest season. Sarris followed
Mabel McKay with two novels, Grand Avenue: A Novel in Stories (1994), which
was adapted as a highly rated HBO miniseries in 1996, and Watermelon Nights
(1998). Also of this generation is Power; her The Grass Dancer (1995), which
received the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first fiction, is more traditional in
many respects than the novels of her contemporaries, with a strong emphasis on
Sioux spirituality.