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Archive
from the January 06, 1997 edition Hillerman's Mystery Writing Scales the Heights of Fiction
Jim Bencivenga, Staff writer of The Christian Science
Monitor
The Fallen Man By Tony Hillerman HarperCollins 234 pp., $24 With the publication of "The Fallen Man," his 12th in the
Leaphorn-Chee detective series, Tony Hillerman's place alongside
such great mystery writers as Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle is certain. Three reasons make this fact rather than
book-review hype. First, Hillerman is a master of style. His sentences are as
lucid, yet subtle, as sunlight in the high desert where Navajo
tribal detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee patrol. He creates a
vivid, austere sense of place. Second, Hillerman probes the metaphysical implications of
crime, religious taboo, and moral weakness in human nature. His
point of view is always compassionate. He taps an innate hunger for
justice and harmony. Third, Hillerman explores misunderstanding and conflict
inherent in cross-cultural mores. This more than anything else sets
him apart from mystery writers of his generation. In "The Fallen Man," time and memory weigh heavily on the
minds of his characters. Skeletal remains of a mountain climber are
found high-up on a ledge on Shiprock mountain. The New Mexico
landmark is one of the tribe's most sacred places. The Dineen (a Navajo word used to describe themselves and
meaning "the people") believe Shiprock flew to its present spot
millennia ago. The Navajo nation climbed down from its holy ridges
and settled in the high desert of Arizona and New Mexico. No Navajo would desecrate the mountain by climbing it, so
whose bones are they? How did they get there? Are they all that's
left of an act of trespass? A climbing accident? An act of
abandonment and a lonely death? Murder? Suicide? The bones turn out to be those of an heir to a Colorado
ranching and mining empire. He has been missing for 11 years. Joe
Leaphorn, now retired from the Navajo tribal police, never solved
the case. He seizes the chance to learn what he couldn't more than
a decade earlier. His search crosses paths with his former sidekick
and successor, Jim Chee. Leaphorn discovers that the fallen climber, just prior to
his disappearance, had married the sister of a man who managed one
of his ranches. A fortune in minerals lay beneath its pristine,
alpine meadows. All the components of a Hillerman novel are here: the
desert-dry locale, a hidden past, the patterns of flawed lives that
at first randomly, and then purposefully intersect to form a tiny,
but intense drama played out in the vastness and majesty of the
American Southwest. As in his other novels, beliefs, habits, and customs of the
Anglo and Navajo are mutually misunderstood. The psychological
divide between whites and Indians can be as deep as any canyon in
the Southwest. One example is the desire of the climber's widow to have his
remains cremated and the ashes spread in a mountain meadow. For the
Navajo, such an act is unthinkable. It would unleash a ghost-spirit
to wander (and haunt) the land forever. By insightfully and sensitively translating Navajo values
into attitudes and motives Anglos and Navajos can both understand,
Hillerman presents contrasting ethnic epistemologies. This allows
him to bridge cultural sensibilities and grapple with the darker
side of human experience. Out of such wrestling he offers glimpses
into the singleness of the human heart. "The Fallen Man," ends in a quintessentially Hillerman
manner. It satisfies the human hunger for justice. The ancient
Greeks called this stasis. The Navajo call it harmony. Great
literature can do no better. *Jim Bencivenga is the Monitor's book editor.
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