A great writer of mysteries. Thanks for all the great writing, Mr. Hillerman.
One memorable passage described how Jim Chee thought it was weird that with non-indians, you had to reassure them every minute or so that you were still listening to them by saing “okay”, “uh-huh”, or whatever. Apparently, this is not the custom with Navajos; they just assume that people are listening if the listener remains silent. That’s an interesting cultural difference.
He is also the only fiction writer I have ever read who mentioned one of my relatives by name in one of his books. I had a relative who was a TV weatherman in Albuquerque. He got mentioned in the novel because weather was a very important topic in New Mexico since so many people lived off the land.
>One memorable passage described how Jim Chee thought it was weird that with non-indians, you had to reassure them every minute or so that you were still listening to them by saing “okay”, “uh-huh”, or whatever. Apparently, this is not the custom with Navajos; they just assume that people are listening if the listener remains silent. That’s an interesting cultural difference.
hat is interesting. I do prefer to listen quietly, though. (Paradoxically, when I’m excited or make some interesting, possibly relevant connection, I jump in and try to engage with them. Weird, now that I think about it.)
In this vein you might also like James Doss
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=James%20D.%20Doss
and Craig Johnson
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_adv_b/?search-alias=stripbooks&unfiltered=1&field-keywords=johnson%2C+craig&field-author=&field-title=&field-isbn=&field-publisher=&node=&url=&field-binding=&field-subject=&field-language=&field-dateop=&field-datemod=&field-dateyear=&sort=relevancerank&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0
Both are good western writers and have indian characters embedded as key elements in their stories.
There is also Peter Bowen http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/002-1030212-6248063?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Peter%20Bowen
who has a Metis indian as his main character.