Only Approved Indians by Jack D. Forbes, and: Eye Killers by A. A. Carr (review)

Reviews 309 OnlyApprovedIndians. Byjack D. Forbes. (Norman and London: University ofOklahoma Press, 1995. 188 pages, $22.95.) EyeKillers. ByA. A. Carr. (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. 352 pages, $19.95.) OnlyApproved Indians is the first book of fiction byJack D. Forbes, a distinguished scholar in the field ofNative American anthropology. Athis best, Forbes isa slysatirist, as in the title story. At an Indian basketball tournament, a team from the Great Lakes suspects thata number of players on the Tucson team are “really Chicanos.”Never mind thateveryTucson playercan speak his native language. When questioned, they are found to be lacking BIA enrollment cards, the official bureaucratic emblem of “authenticity.” The members of the GreatLakes team flash their cards, neatly “encased in plastic.”‘This proved that they were all real Indians,”Forbes quips, “even a blonde-haired guy. He was really only about one-sixteenth, but the BIA rolls had been changed for his tribe, so legally he was one-fourth.”The Tucson team winds up being disqualified, thus bringing this story to its perfect ironic conclusion: “A tremendous roar of applause swept through the stands. A white BIA official wiped the tears from his eyes and said to a companion, ‘God blessAmerica. I think we’ve won.’” Other stories confront the issue ofIndian identity aswell, though with mixed results. “An Incident in aTourAmong the Natives”isstructured asa dialogue at apartybetween an American Indian writer touring Great Britain and a British woman who is trying to seduce him. The story is not without its comic highlights, as when the woman suggests thatshe wouldn’tmind being “carried off”and “ravished”bya “Red Indian,”“like in all of the stories I’ve read about white women being carried off.” But Forbes, in the end, overdoes the point that people mistake fictions about Indians for truths. In fact, it’s impossible to read one of these stories and not be aware of the thesis driving each one. The stories in which Forbes tempers the preaching with humor are, in my opinion, superior to the somber or angry pieces, though subtlety is not Forbes’forte no matter what tone he chooses for his storytelling. Also characteristic of these stories is how little they are concerned with the art of fiction. Forbes uses the simplest ofdevices, such asthe dialogue format mentioned above, to presentwhat are in effect essays in thin fictional disguise. This isin directcontrast toEyeKillers,A.A. Carr’sdebutnovel. Itisobvious that Carr, partLagunaand partNavajo, knowshiswayaround the Pueblo mesas ofNew Mexico. His ornate descriptions of the landscape—for example, “Above the western rim of Mesa Gigante, easilyseen in thislight, white tentacles ofsnowfall caressed ashadowed ridge”— reveal thathe ismostathome in the land offiction. Such self-conscious mimicking of the Gothic style occurs throughout the book. For Eye Killers is a vampire novel. The thousand-year-oldvampire Falke takesas his latestvictim and wife MelissaRoanhorse, an Albuquerque teenager. Melissa’sgrandfather, aNavajo shepherd and widower living asolitary, introspective life on Pueblo land west of the city, will be informed of his granddaughter’s strange abduction by Melissa’s high school teacher, Diana Logan. That he and Diana, a most unlikely duo, will eventually save Melissa isa foregone conclusion. What sets this vampire novel apart from the countless others is its Native American perspective. The Navajo myth of the Monster Slayer underlies the action of Carr’s poignant allegory, in which native wisdom defeats the bloodsucking European invader. 310 Western American Literature Thus, Carrhas taken apopulargenre and added uniquelyto it. Too intelligentto be dismissed as mere formula fiction, Eye Killers is nevertheless saddled at times by such conventions ofpopularfiction as pat characters and an emphasis on plot. Furthermore, a subplot involving Diana and her ex-husband goes nowhere. OnlyApprovedIndiansand EyeKillersare volumes twelve and thirteen respectively in theAmerican Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series ofthe UniversityofOklahoma Press, a series that has pushed the boundaries of Native American fiction since its inception in 1992. Though neither book can be termedacomplete success, together they provide ample antidote for anyone suffering under the notion that Native American literature is somehow all alike. PAUL HADELLA Southern OregonState College TheAbsenceofAngels. ByW. S. Penn. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. 272 pages, $13.95.) This first...