Word Ways: The Novels of D'Arcy McNickle

By John Lloyd Purdy

This first book-length study of a much neglected Native American writer examines the life and novels of D'Arcy McNickle (1904-1977). Well known as an anthropologist, a historian, and a member of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, McNickle's success in white society suggested he was an "assimilated" Indian; yet he was active in the struggle for Indian sovereignty, and his personal papers reveal a man who remained throughout his life powerfully influenced by his Native heritage.Using previously unexplored material from McNickle's personal papers at the Newberry Library in Chicago, John Purdy traces the author's literary development through his three novels and explores the manner in which his background was reflected in his fiction. Textual analysis and examination of the manuscript of The Surrounded (1936), for example, reveal a shift in McNickle's awareness from the belief that Native Americans are fatalistic by nature to the recognition of their long-standing and intricate understanding of their power of self-determination. Purdy similarly considers his later novels, "Runner in the Sun" and "Wind from an Enemy Sky, " relates McNickle's works to those of his contemporaries and considers his legacy in today's generation of Native American writers."Word Ways" charts McNickle's attainment of his vision of contemporary Native cultures--his search for common threads in the values and traditions of all American tribal cultures--and demonstrates how that vision came to direct his life. He was a man who lived in an era that saw the renewal of Native consciousness, a sense of pride and power based upon, but not always coincidental with, earlier tribal values and beliefs. McNickle's novels have this renewal as their subject, and the story of how he wrote them is the story of Native Americans in this century as they addressed the changes in their world.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816511578
• ISBN13: 9780816511570
• Release Date: March 1990
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Length: 167 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"