New Mexico mystery writer Tony Hillerman died Sunday, Oct. 26, at age 83.
It saddens me because he was a darned good writer and, by all accounts, a good man.
But I also have a selfish reason to mourn his passing: He’ll never write an author’s blurb on the back of my own mystery book.
I met Tony Hillerman four years ago when I attended the first-ever Tony Hillerman Writer’s Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’d been a journalist and copywriter for many years and had written a mystery book – just to see if I could do it. I thought it was a pretty good book, sent out the manuscript and landed an agent right away. So, armed with that little success, I printed up some business cards that added “novelist” to “writer/editor” and went off to the conference.
Tony was teased by other published writers at the conference as being a “blurb slut,” meaning he generously wrote more blurbs for other authors’ books than almost anybody else. When I spoke with him later, I asked him if he’d consider being a “blurb slut” for my book. He told me to send him the galleys when I had a publisher. “But hurry up,” he said. “I’m not getting any younger,” or words to that effect.
Publishing being what it is, that book is a long way from reaching Barnes and Noble bookshelves. And, if and when it is ever published, I’ll have to look elsewhere for an endorsement of it.
Eighteen of Hillerman’s 29 books were tribal police mysteries featuring Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. He earned many literary prizes and several of his books have been made into movies.
The Navajo Nation embraced him and his books because of the way he treated the Indians in his books by instilling a respect for Indian culture. "I wanted Americans to stop thinking of Navajos as primitive persons, to understand that they are sophisticated and complicated,” he said. His books reflect the admiration he had for the Navajo culture, their ancient tribal beliefs and customs, from purification rituals for a soldier returning from a foreign war to incest taboos for a proper clan marriage.
He died of pulmonary failure after surviving two heart attacks, surgeries for prostate and bladder cancer and "two unreliable knees due to being blown up in World War II."
He was born in the tiny Oklahoma town of Sacred Heart. In 1943, he joined the US Army, serving in combat in World War II. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Purple Heart after being wounded in 1945. His injuries included broken legs, foot, ankle, facial burns, and temporary blindness.
After the war, he attended the University of Oklahoma, receiving a B. A. in 1948. He spent 14 years as a newspaper reporter in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. He was UPI bureau manager in Santa Fe, NM, political reporter and editor for the Santa Fe New Mexican. He returned to school for a master’s degree and taught journalism at the University of New Mexico until 1987. He started writing mysteries after thinking, "Wouldn’t it be wonderful to work in plastic (fiction) instead of flint (journalism), and make your imagination drive the writing?" In 1970 he published the first of the series, “The Blessing Way.”
Fortunate for his reading public, he dismissed the advice his first agent gave him after he submitted his manuscript. She told him if he wanted to get published, he should “get rid of the Indian stuff.”
See a PBS 3-part YouTube video about Tony Hillerman at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCY3Lr6bhyI.
Leave Your Comments