The Fine Print; Program 02 21 Guest Tony Hillerman Book The Wailing Wind

i mean from national public radio this is the fine print and exploration and celebration of the written word i'm rebecca bain last week the american library association conference was held in atlanta with more than twenty one thousand people attended one of those special events which took place at the conference was a breakfast with tony hillerman sponsored by ingram library services gamco incorporated and turtle back the event's organizers thought and instead of having mr hillerman read from his new novel the wailing when it might be more fun to have somewhat interview him with the audience watch and the nice people at your library services asked if i'd like to do that interview i'm going to share with you my friend sharon mccrum herself

an award winning author has been heard to say on more than one occasion if all the mystery writers in america lived in one town mary higgins clark would be in the big house on the hill but tony hillerman would be the mayor she is also confessed that horrible in life is to do for appalachian what tony hillerman has done for the navajo and other native american tribes so what exactly happens tony hillerman done well he's written eight books of fiction seven books of nonfiction he's won the address the awards he's in the oklahoma hall of fame he's won the what anthony award twice them are getting award twice mystery writers of america grand master award special friends of the tiny nation by navajo nation and an edgar award as well he has won some very special awards from the

center for the american indians ambassador award and the navajo tribe special friend ward i do want to make the point right here that i'd only given you the top line mr yeomans awards would end up taking up this entire problem without wisdom about me to point because we're here because we want him to tell us some good stories awards are a way to recognize persons achievements but for those of us on this side of the book jacket <unk> helens enduring legacy will be helping millions of readers all over the world have a better understanding of what a rich cultural heritage are native american people have a phrase in your books fairly often the navajo own way what does that mean to you we're less far we were talking earlier about the tennessean most of us know that we need to have interrupted her girls that'll never interrupt almost never in a

traditional still when someone is telling something and he's all those people waiting they wait they presume he's organizing his thoughts and his mother continue and so you have all these long gaps in it when we're not interrupting it's is very effective at our house please continue know it's it's a very interesting technique because we define fitness most people in our society aren't intimidated by silence is a challenge but he can't stand a moment he's worked a lot i value they put on family and on women in most klan is the very wise person turns out

bill at the attitude towards conspicuous consumption for example or for work yearlings in the novel origin story the first man a martyr into this world of forced banter which say you know this is the forgotten years was cracked buckled this bundle of ways to cause trouble in your own happiness and so forth behind him an end in the previous world so he sends a burden down did it entails a burden to help you know which tells a virtual bring back the way to make money which i think is it's a wonderful symbol right among the navajo people it's also lowers to wellesley and onwards have more money than his kids again and that's easy to do in a very impoverished culture regards it as a bad man evil because he was a good man who would know more money than it differently and he would be held been no interruptions i

tried to know what it was like growing up in sacred heart oklahoma well we are friends were mostly or want it as well so some bands hot water mains were moved there from an indian territory from kansas because the railroads one of the land they were living on campus so we were struck by pot wannabe families and some simple sine wave and they were just my friends' kids we played cowboy mean it was being played cowboy and they were the cowboys for her and we have the indians that were just regular people and that's where i feel about battles to accept that they have no mind in their traditional was mr much prejudice in terms of the town itself you know a us and the only thing going on sure i think what what the balkans and the

latvian the like the estonians and our case the us were the country boys with palm oil even the seminal boys and no runs an abiding members of the nineties the kids who wore bib overalls and turned over lunch in a sack and them were the town boys wore bell plants and low cut shoes and had money shifted yes and we thought we could shoot better than they could we all had twenty five of the twelve years old and my family that's when it and we figured if i waited with that we've got in fights and found out that was just another myth anyway that was the us and then for us so i'm sure but here's the other lots of them such ways there you are decorated for valor for your services in world war two came home wounded and began a career as a newspaper journalist

i do have this desire to be a writer prior to coming home from the war or not in high school class history which is no big deal but that's i had actually written so when i go home i have one career goal that was somehow escaped from farming having tried that as a kid so i'm a mechanical engineer went to college deal was my dad died when i was a teenager in libya was the family my mother and brother would play their first semester to asian and then i would get jobs enough to take care of the second semester and i'm on that that was tough to do and i say you know about something the couple courses later dubie and one by the way good luck i went to sleep an amount less than the professor warren right and i want to sleep in the yemeni war made him the third time i had a double time it was jogging name of the mining

you and then attention are quite complete slate's a lot of the aisle professor missions dublin state law they want to tell a scientist or i didn't have a clue what it would be but i had when i was wounded i was briefly but then once i was blind to a couple of time they decided they would gamble leave it in states that could stop that infection and then about i would know his vision or less normal care attitude the way told me they want the choice it might be a limited for you anyway they they stopped infections or have one good eye for me that i no longer a patch over and saw that i'm not going to like him live and work a lot of chemistry with one that i also i knew of mathematics and as you mentioned i got a decoration

and the woman oh woman on the day oklahoma it will feature stories and to talk to my mother and my mother lorraine about smugglers and she told my mother i may come sooner when i want to sit here and she commissioned to write or so not having a clue what else to ok why not try out and i went to a girl who he's even had the gi bill sixty seven dollars a month well just talk on long after a short question good answer to join the question so for approximately twenty years you worked as a reporter primarily a political reporter but you also covered some crime beats as well is that correct our crime involves not come about arizona nevada org and find and parker

so when and why did you sign to write mysteries i didn't really and i thought well i like to read mysteries they have a former short much shorter and i would use you wrap it up into and fifty large swath of fire at world's if i can do it now move on this by then iran literally eight or nine million words you know for money in obituaries they were not fighting words together i knew i could write narrative develop that i knew was preview the description that more flexible plop all or did more fighting to vote for are sort of all right up the street and also the

arctic the fantastic state senate navajo tribe that will reverberate back drastically once played with because they say hi so i wrote blessing way and it got published and i just tried to write a great american novel and the novel blue and gray went back and i was trying to write a second shot at maybe i get writer's and that went on from there joey porn and jim chee is there anyone out there who doesn't the door these two characters who doesn't get angry at the times for being so stubborn and the analysts that joe wait times for just being so darn good at pretty much everything he wants to do they are wonderful characters where do these characters come from common pleas about their creations what cortisol of law goes without saying well no actually in the act

in the first place for boring job ahead put me in contact with that you own texas sheriff who was the best crop of a government that i'm alone and this guy was really smart anyone he will also be human you maybe knew how to handle people and cases and admired him off shore when i needed a cop when i first arrived at first level book a policeman and it was a very minor characters meet somebody that conduit for information he became hugely points or so i just added a lot of navajo characteristics to give minority voters us or he came from with women to suddenly the other guy it was because it was too sophisticated do what i wanted him to do in that novel i sort of mixed together the whole room full of a practice you're teaching there are no bomb protest period great time a teacher and they were really unrest

i'm proud of my country oh that budget use more traditional the the older policeman liquori was born back in a period when the earlier service was financed hate indians in boarding school i think they come away from their home to blossom in the boarding school and punish him for speaking their native language if they're still there and so they were at home with the level of his work back and hold on hearing the stories of their culture which are told so easily certain cultural story told in the spring summer winner in summer summer for so for so many of them were or were much more assimilated and older guys they were closer to the standard a modernized american culture younger guys that the iaea decided one worker somebody is that one hour that come in they were more traditional

delay a conversation with tony hilton author of the agency history series we'll resume after this brief time out i hope you can continue to check out on e and a support for the fine print comes from grief guilt the end of the bed and breakfast for book lovers located on the highest point in one county great deal of the three hundred sixty degree view of the great smokey mountains w w w dot rates will be jesus jesus research that reworking their dirty word or some people call it the fun part of writing and

working really as more boats were left on that because what's more is it's set in a basement library reading the doctoral dissertations that is that is there except blank computer screen and wonder why weren't phil pierron well anyway at one side the side of them really try to get that troubles of fraud and spent hundreds of hours reading the dullest writing in the world of reports of the american anthropological association convention education you all and then i would talk to my money on a phenomenal pretty well with it is as accurate and then one guy he said rich get that nasa told him it was like a couple of harvard he said all i know about that but we still talk but i mostly migrant mandated

by the mine maternal uncle was a great joke made up a story unfolding just sour how our a way you keep accumulating information and check in and out because what's true and maybe in east jerusalem it may not be true in the western's for example even be that different accent big river valley you just talking about how the older native americans are less traditional than the younger ones you make a statement in this book that being indian is not blind as much as it is culture we've already discussed that someone could you elaborate on a little more what things are either the navajo in danger of losing entirely well a lot of the language loving young it's a tough line and i think it is pretty much depends on the

work their work will include for example walking but it will add to the speed with which are walking the other direction with which you're walking or within walking somebody else of them and all of the work a lot of the organizers to give will probably don't spend much time on the road to russian art was there or people in her family so they don't hear the story was not written show delusion a lot when i was working on pbs have a telecast of some bass company or about four years ago it was going to be a demonstration of them in texas it shows about this is and the navajos were dressed in costumes were utterly absent mama have overcome mixture of cheyenne an alaskan then maybe went to see and there's an image by the way have been some of the one of a wannabe call when a smithsonian studies at the museum of native american

museum in washington movement from brooklyn all that stuff and nine the director it cannot satisfy some forty eight cents a pennsylvanian are and that sort of meet merritt sort of form and for some reason they invited me to be on the panel maker about ten different tribes represented talking about bears an audience of them the antidote with questions on very first answer was from somebody who's asked the home where they prefer to be called indigenous people or a native american farm first i am the most surety surety that would rather be called gertie if you know our tribal my name and if you don't cause indians of what we call each other in the news like that was the navajo believe when he said well but the scientists as you know are not whole that's fine cause a navajo but for god's sake he said don't clothe

indigenous people because most of us are intelligent enough that there weren't any primates in north america or south america and many cars and this is people were wondering what you think we descended from where the turkeys are i feel my shirt the same way we don't owe course driving from indians working with your novel called him in their union and bubbles or pellet ok to have accents and the next one said they knew the hopi said we don't care law and you don't follow its ms thomsen were just cycle that can avoid looking for turkey or worse ah anyway everybody on the carrots and i prefer to be called are troubled by people who are troubled mind palestinians which is what we call each other and one and said how many people in a

few more morning america and two people are the two people in there who are native american muslims are anyway so much of that this pill pos indigenous people of course of npr interview notoriously point well say are politically correct way of referring to these people on our npr station is native american indians figuring that we cover all bases but we will not be heading indigenous do a lot for our issue now the ideas for your novels i was fascinated with writers and where those ideas come from for some it's an image comes into his or her head and grows from the air from some it's something they read something they hear grows from their others it's perhaps a turn of phrase that can set off a whole chain reaction

where is the start for humans to go in my case it's a whole bunch of stuff off to remember that in a minute you might think in the case of this book boiling when i'm thinking about the man how hard to say if you could and i am always subplots and i've been remembering what i've read about the west in the mountain with as full of littered with lawful mind loss over mines last ship months ago legendary course some of my actually exist but they won't let them form ambivalent about marcel just by george involve a famous last gold on the adams did i thought okay that's it it had to i was been thinking for a long time about we haven't forgotten no doubt or quintet which was used as an ammunition depot for them world war one and we're working in the vietnam war i think its story

or walmart we were dropped on vietnam and that people want now is it's forty square miles with a lot of spice and backs up his truck beside a highway right now it's empty almost empty role after row after row of the immense bunkers and railroad tracks wrong person or run out of grass in a little show for the frontman shows where the people can work if the rib soundbite of opening working on sort of be a great background from national so i have an idea of the month and in developing natural gas emissions at the center of fellow for example is that fans of money to demonstrate your stuff could be grown there was a big romance that would be a good market you know people are a lot like him most among the remaining course

ok let's let all my plan and was to have a swimming may have him obsessed with the idea of finding one having so what i was from this one thing go to jail that it go to jail short term and the people watching the flow state is somehow i had to get the story out for when they know how what of song something wicked always work out in the end to come up with another pick another idea of the day oh by the way i wanted to ask you just first of all do you love maps as much as jack oh we corners by hackers sending out there is selling a white if you brine native

groups godzilla much i go to war for miers third explanation that job is for why he likes to draw maps when he's investigating something and he says it helps give him clarity of mind you know a way of focusing in on where this happened where did that happen you know what's in between one small round of the perfect sense especially in an area as rugged that's where he lives and i think so to engage get lost that's right it does keep me from getting lost please join me and thanking tony hillerman for the most delightful breakfast i can remember having a long longtime and for his talent and for giving us so many wonderful

books and for sharing so many great stories this morning thank you al and that concludes our conversation with tony hillerman author of the joe lee porn jim chee mystery series for which he's won every prestigious award given to that category of books including the mystery writers of america grand master award he has also received the navajo tribe special friend award and the center for the american indians ambassador warrior this conversation took place at the american library services convention which was held last week in atlanta at a breakfast sponsored by ingram library services damn college cork rated and turtleneck walks and that doesn't include our program for this week and i hope you enjoyed it and i hope you'll join me next week as well when together we'll check out the fine print for national public radio i'm

rebecca bain all though the fine print is produced by rebecca painted scott smith for national public radio is at the program are available on compact disc at a cost of twenty dollars to order call a business office monday through friday at six one five seven six else two nine or three you can hear the fine print any time by visiting our website you'll find more than two years worth of programs archived there you can also find more information about the fine print book clubs including the complete list of club selections dresses w w w dot org w p l n o r g o l l o he's

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