Tony Hillerman is helping me remember my life.

I started reading Hillerman maybe forty years ago. I was teaching high school English, and revised the curriculum. We had a required reading list. Some of the kids complained that the list was too long, the books were too long, some were boring, and why couldn’t they read something they’d like?


They were intellectual rebels, the way every new generation is. Why, even I myself was a rebel when I was their age, even younger, and still am.

So I made a deal and we compromised.

We didn’t have to read through the whole list. I would pick and choose the best of the Great Literature, and we would spend more time with each one. And for every book from the required list (and a substantial book report), they could choose two (count ‘em, TWO) books they wanted to read (with, or course, a substantial book report).

BUT…the caveat: They had to justify their choice. Why did they want to read their book? What value would it hold for them that would justify their choice to replace a “classic”?

They could present their case to me in writing, like a lawyer’s brief, or argue it verbally, subject to my interrogation (my prowess in high school debate stood me in good stead).

They saw right away that critical thinking would get them what they wanted. They were preparing for life in the big world.

I granted permission in nearly every case, they read a lot of books and learned to love reading.

One boy wanted to read a Hillerman novel.

I had heard of Hillerman. Never read him. In my ignorance, I assumed he was pulp fiction, murder mysteries, a lot of bang bang on the rez.

“Oh, no,” said the boy. “He’s really good, and the book has a character who’s a long distance Indian runner, and I run track…”

He established his relevance, I granted permission, and then I thought, “I shouldn’t be so judgemental,” and, “I’m not too old to learn.”

And I thought, “My student is a good kid, I don’t want to be out of touch with his generation and ought to know more about what the students are reading by choice these days,” so I went to the library, checked out the same Hillerman book, and started reading.

From the first page I was hooked. Where had I been all my life?

I read the Hillerman book in question, then I read another, and another, and another. I bought them cheap at thrift stores and yard sales, and filled a shelf.

I’ve written about Hillerman before, in my blog (do you remember my blog? Are you reading it? Of course you are, right now) and I recommend him and everybody should read him.

The guy up the street who lives in a hacienda has a shelf of Hillerman. We compared notes, and he said, “I’m waiting for the next Hillerman. (This was forty years ago).In the meantime, maybe it’s time to read through them again,” and he gestured toward the shelf.

I’ll say more about Hillerman later, but for now I want to provide some context. That’s to answer the possible objections of those readers who think my digressions have strayed from the point. Trust me, everything is related.

My first Hillerman was forty years ago. That was about the time that Shirley closed down her ballet studio, Sterling School of Classical Ballet and Dance Arts, in Pasadena, on Lake Ave. just above Washington Blvd., after 10 glorious hard working years. The landlord had raised the rent four times, and refused to fix the ceiling that fell down on the dance floor from the upstairs apartment which had overflowed a clogged drain, it warped the dance floor, and it was time to move on.

Shirley went back to school, college, PCC, to continue her interrupted education, after which she finished her degree at UCLA in the new major, World Arts and Cultures, where she learned everything about everything.

At PCC, she took lots of good classes with lots of good teachers who could hold their own with the big college professors.

She took English Lit. with a wise and kind friendly professor who lived just around the corner and down the street from us in Altadena. He hired her as a student assistant to help in the very large class he taught for English second language learners, and she taught and made friends with so many students from across the globe, where the room rang with so many languages and English worked its way to the fore.

I would pick her up after class to bring her home, and I got to talking with her professor as a colleague because our students read the same books. We became friends. I shared an essay reading assignment I had given my class, a “deep dive” into Madame Bovary, and he said approvingly, “College level, challenging.” I was pleased and flattered by his acknowledged approbation.

Shirley was such a good English student, published poetry in the school lit mag, served on the Student Council, and, at graduation, was awarded two (count ‘em, TWO) special recognitions, signed certificates and actual money, $50 each (WOW!).

And Shirley took a range of classes, dance, of course, where she choreographed and coached, and geology, where the class collected rocks from the mountains above Altadena, and the professor, as a parting gift to the class on the eve of his retirement, gave a special lecture on how and where to buy a house, on good foundation ground, not on the edge of a cliff, and not right on the beach where the waves come periodically in high tide.

And she took anthropology as a forerunner to her World Arts and Cultures major at UCLA. She had really good teachers, and signed up for the summer field trip with Elvio Angeloni (I’ve written about it at some length elsewhere) where we went to the Southwest reservations.

And that’s why I’m writing about it now.

Because I just finished reading Hillerman’s Dance Hall of the Dead. It talks about places we went to, and experiences that we had that I sometimes misremembered or misconstrued.

At the end of Hillerman’s novel, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, pursuing a murder suspect, is caught up in a Shalako celebration where katchinas dance through the Zuni Village.

Our field trip class had parked at our reserved campsite, set up our tents, and then carpooled over to the Zuni Village. I had forgotten it was Zuni, knew it wasn’t Navajo or Hopi.

We walked right in, the streets filled with people, dancers naked except for the large katchina head and a loincloth, bodies scrubbed and gleaming, the scent of pinon emanating from their dancing flesh, chests, limbs, permeating the air.

We stood in a house with a crowd of locals, watching through the windows, then a dancer came through the door, dancing through the crowd, spreading the pinon scent, and flicked a switch as he danced by.

After too few hours, Elvio rounded us up and herded us to our cars so we could return to camp and sleep before resuming our journey in the morning, becaue we had an itinerary.

Shirley and I were the last to leave. We didn’t want to go. We stayed in the crowd, standing together, holding hands, the way we wanted to be for the rest of our lives. We were in the moment.

The dancing would go on all night. I wanted to stay with them all night, and dance into the morning.

Reading about it in the Hillerman book was re-living that exalted mystical experience.

The book’s cover says, “Hillerman is a master.”

Yes, yes he is.

He’s on a par with what we call “the classics.”

He uses language to the limit and breaks the barriers of conventional. He probes philosophically. He writes pages of poetic prose. He specializes in descriptions of location. The endless desert, the climbing rocks, the hidden valleys, the earth and sky, the sun and moon, the light and dark. And The People, who live in the past and bring it into the present. He makes me learn what I never knew and otherwise wouldn’t.

He takes you with him and you see what he sees, feel what he feels. He gives us an identifiable protagonist, a flawed and noble human being. He writes a good story, and takes us with him, and we almost become Navajos.

So I thank him for taking me back to my own life where I went places and did things and Shirley was with me..

I won’t try to describe his words because I can’t do him justice.

I could quote passages, but it’s better that you read the book.