Tony Hillerman has died

Tony Hillerman, the 83-year-old mystery novelist who used the Southwest as a setting and whose two best-remembered characters were Navajo police officers, has died.

Hillerman won the 2004 Los Angeles Times Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement. It was just one of his many honors, including Edgar and Grand Master Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, the Navajo Tribal Council's Special Friend of the Dineh award, and an Agatha Award for his 2001 memoir, "Seldom Disappointed."

Hillerman, who was not Native American, was brought up in rural Oklahoma and went, as a boy, to a Pottawatomie Indian school. In a 2002 interview, he told PBS: 

When I decided I wanted to be a novelist, I had been a newspaperman for years. I didn't know whether I could develop a plot; I didn't know if I could develop a character. I knew I could describe. I thought, I'll set it on a Navajo reservation so I'll have a good background. If they don't like the story, they can look at the state setting, you know? That's how I got started. The more I knew about [the Navajo], the better I liked them.

The following year, the magazine The Rake asked him what he'd like readers to take away from his work:

Above all I would like them to be aware that the cultures of the people I like to write about, the Navajos and Hopis and so forth, are extremely complicated and extremely interesting — and in the case of the Navajos especially, are extremely valuable. You can learn a heck of a lot from Hopi and Navajo ways of life. For example, the negative value they put on greed, of having more than you need. In their mythology, that's how you identify a witch, the ultimate of evil. They have more than one kind of what we call a witch, they don't use that word. And the fellow who's got money and stuff, and kinfolks who are hungry, it's an almost certain sign the guy's evil. We've sort of left that behind us. We think the homeless person is probably a crook, or dangerous.

Greed was a theme for him then, as he talked about his 16th novel featuring Navajo detectives Leaphorn and Chee, "The Sinister Pig."

I think it was Enron and all these major, important companies going bankrupt and screwing their employees out of their retirement and their perks and everything while the CEOs sail off to their summer homes in the Antibes or whatever. That inspired me to get rough on 'em. Apparently nobody else is.

Hillerman thought his 20 years as a journalist served him well.

...you really had to sort of take a vow of poverty to be a journalist in the old days. ... I really think working at a newspaper as a reporter has two huge advantages for writers. One, you're writing every day. You learn how to use the language, you learn how to get a paragraph to make sense if you're doing it every day. And also it puts you where the action is, where you're seeing the guy sitting in the defendant's box sweating out the jury. You're at the scene of the crime, you're at the scene of the train wreck, you're dealing with people that are under tension, and I just think you can get a whole head full of memories of people and things. I wonder sometimes how normal people come up with their good books.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo credit: AP

Comments

[Mary Ellen Ipiotis]

I actually had the pleasure of meeting and visiting with Mr. Hillerman and his wife on occasion or two. His son Dan is my mother's pharmacist in Albuquerque. When I stepped into Mr. Hillermans office, in his lovely north valley home, I ofcourse was in awe and wondered about all the incidents, accidents, mysterious situations and scenes on the rez, brougt to life in the pages of his books, right there in his corner of the world and private space for creating and writing such world reknown, well received and read tales of Navajo and Hopi life.

The literary world of mystery, history and the written word will long remember this crusty gentlemen, a humble, honorable man who offered an honest voice for many Native Americans and ordinary folk with endless interesting tales to tell.

Rest in Peace Tony Hillerman.
Mary Ellen Ipiotis,
Albuquerque

[cal godot]

He was one of my favorite teachers. Full of great stories. They broke the mold when Tony was made.

[Jack Boone]

As a journalism major at UNM during the late '60s, I got to know Tony quite well. He was a hell of a newspaperman and hell of a teacher before taking up mystery writing.

[Nan Okeefe]

Tony Hillerman's writing gave the reader a sense of place, and of being in the moment. Step by step we could enter that world safely, or not, depending on the action he created. I believe his kindness and appreciation of being present shines through his main characters Chee and Leaphorn.

[Jen]

The literary world has lost a great member. Rest in peace, Tony Hillerman.

[Charles E. Hodges]

Tony Hillerman gave the Navajo people a voice. I'll always remember eating lunch at a Ramah Navajo restaurant and leaving to see a Navajo tribal police car outside. Who knows, maybe I lunched with Officer Chee!

[Liz Rodriguez]

I felt like I really got to know him after reading ‘Seldom Disappointed’. I will miss looking forward to his next books.

[John Conover]

The roots of our America are brought to life in Mr Hillerman's writings. If I considered reincarnation I always pictured myself as an Indian. His books were the first I sought when I went into the local bookstore. Reading them was like entering the world where we glimpsed a better part of what it is to be human.

[Linda Ferrell]

Tony Hillerman was my mother's cousin. He was a hero to her and she was so proud of him. It is a great loss to all of us, the world.