Review of Word Ways: The Novels of D'Arcy McNickle

Authors

Alanna Kathleen Brown, Montana State University

Date of this Version

1992

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly 12:1 (Winter 1992). Copyright © 1992 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

D'Arcy McNickle is best known for his ethnohistorical works, They Came Here First (1949), Indians and Other Americans (1959), and Native American Tribalism: Indian Survival and Renewals (1973). He also is recognized for his extraordinary efforts on behalf of Indian self-determination while a member ofJohn Collier's Bureau of Indian Affairs staff. Yet in reading John Purdy's thorough and sensitive analysis of McNickle's three novels, The Surrounded (1936), Runner in the 'Sun (1954), and Wind from an Enemy Sky (1978), it may ultimately be McNickle's work in fiction that most effectively preserves Indians' social and spiritual values while stimulating Euro-Americans to bi-cultural sightedness.