Michael Dorris

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Cover of a book with interviews with Erdrich and Dorris (right) who had a unique collaborative relationship. ISBN 0-87805-652-1

Michael Anthony Dorris (January 30, 1945 - April 11, 1997) was a prominent Native American novelist and scholar. His most famous works include the non-fiction The Broken Cord and the novel A Yellow Raft in Blue Water. He was married to author Louise Erdrich. He committed suicide in 1997.

The Broken Cord helped provoke Congress to approve legislation to warn of the dangers of drinking alcohol during pregnancy. Dorris won the 1989 National Book Critics Circle award for the book for nonfiction.

[edit] Biography

Dorris, born in Louisville, Kentucky (or possibly Dayton, Washington)^[1], to Jim and Mary Besy (Burkhardt) Dorris, was of mixed Modoc Indian, Irish, and French blood. He received his B.A. from Georgetown University in 1967, and a master's degree in philosophy from Yale University in 1970. In 1972, Dorris founded Dartmouth College's Native American Studies department.

In 1971, he was the first unmarried man in the United States to adopt a child.[1] His adopted son, a three-year-old Lakota boy named Reynold Abel, was eventually diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Dorris' struggle to understand and care for his son became the subject of his famous work The Broken Cord (in which he uses the pseudonym "Adam" for his son). Dorris went on to adopt two more Native American children, Jeffrey Sava in 1974 and Madeline Hannah in 1976, who probably both suffered from fetal alcohol effect.

In 1981, he married Erdrich, whom he met while teaching at Dartmouth College. She adopted his three children and eventually gave birth to three daughters by him: Persia Andromeda, Pallas Antigone, and Aza Marion. Erdrich and Dorris contributed to one another's writing and wrote together under the pseudonym Milou North.

[edit] Suicide

In 1991, Reynold Abel was hit by a car and killed. In 1995, Dorris and Erdrich unsuccessfully pursued a court case against their son Jeffrey Sava, who had accused them both of child abuse.^[2] Shortly afterward, Dorris and Erdrich separated and began divorce proceedings. On April 10, 1997, Dorris used a combination of suffocation, drugs, and alcohol to commit suicide in the Brick Tower Motor Inn in Concord, New Hampshire. Shortly before his death, allegations surfaced of possible abuse against one of his daughters, but the case files were closed with his death and never substantiated or disproved. In conversations with friends before his death, Dorris maintained his innocence and his lack of faith that the legal system would exonerate him.

[edit] Criticisms of Dorris

Scholar Gerald Vizenor, in his book Manifest Manners, accuses Dorris of pandering to white views of Native alcoholism, after Dorris urged that alcoholic Native mothers should be sent to prison.^[3]

In a high-profile case of mud slinging, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn told Dorris that she would no longer accept his contributions to her journal Wicazo Sa, on the basis that she could find no trace of Dorris's claimed Native ancestry. Cook-Lynn accused Dorris of pandering to an academic community that wanted Natives to behave in a certain way.^[4]

[edit] Works

• Native Americans Five Hundred Years After (with photographer Joseph Farber, 1975)
• A Guide to Research on North American Indians (with Mary Byler and Arlene Hirschfelder, 1983)
• A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987)
• The Broken Cord: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the Loss of the Future, (1989)
• The Crown of Columbus (with Louise Erdrich, 1991)
• Route Two and Back (with Louise Erdrich, 1991)
• Morning Girl (1992)
• Working Men (1993)
• Rooms in the House of Stone (1993)
• Paper Trail (a collection of essays, 1994)
• Guests, (1995)
• Sees Behind Trees (1996)
• Cloud Chamber (1997)
• The Window (1997)
• (Editor) The Most Wonderful Books: Writers on Discovering the Pleasures of Reading (1997)

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• "Michael Dorris." Newsmakers 1997, Issue 4. Gale Research, 1997.
• Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2005.
• Gleick, Elizabeth. "An imperfect union." Time, April 28, 1997 v149 n17 p68(2)
• "Michael Anthony Dorris." Notable Native Americans. Gale Research, 1995.

[edit] See also

• List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
• Native American Renaissance
• Native American Studies

[edit] External links

• 1989 Audio Interview with Michael Dorris - RealAudio
• A Broken Life, by Josie Rawson. Salon, April 1997.