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A review by cleheny
The Ghostway by Tony Hillerman
3.0
The Ghostway explores Jim Chee's central dilemma, which persists for several books: he's a Navajo cop studying to be a singer (e.g., a "medicine man") who's repulsed by white culture while attracted to women raised in that culture. The mystery revolves around the death of a Navajo man, Albert Gorman, born and raised in LA, where his family was relocated by the U.S. government, but killed in or around Shiprock, AZ, on the reservation. Hillerman doesn't give the history behind this relocation, the 1956 Indian Relocation Act, but depicts its bleak effects (the Act was supposed to give Native Americans vocational training following relocation to cities, but , for most relocated individuals, resulted in broken promises, isolation, and urban poverty). The latter half of the book is set in LA, but it's not the LA anyone would ever visit. It's impoverished, grim, and desolate.
Although Chee does meet a couple of decent white men (an LA cop and a stroke victim), Hillerman's depiction of white America is characteristically unattractive. White people are largely motivated by greed and/or socio/psychopathy; they don't care for the elderly and abandon them to bleak nursing homes; they don't demonstrate a sense of community or family. Chee is troubled by what he sees, and the only favorable comparison he draws is between the (relative) comfort of a hospital room when injured compared to being sick in his grandmother's hogan, which was cold. Otherwise it is clear that he finds nothing to admire or appreciate in what he sees.
Which is why it's so weird that he is in love with Mary Landon, who made such an unfavorable impression in People of Darkness, the first Chee mystery. Mary wants him to join the FBI, which Jim knows means leaving his people and the land he loves. That also means abandoning his ambition to become a singer, and, in his mind, betray his people's traditions and the Navajo Way. Yet he tells himself that he's willing to do it. What's surprising is how that conflict resolves. If only Chee demonstrated similar insight into his conflicting desires.
The mystery is clever, but it takes back seat to Chee's personal dilemma and the grim backdrop of impoverished LA. I did like the character of Margaret Sosi; she consistently demonstrates greater common sense than our hero.
Although Chee does meet a couple of decent white men (an LA cop and a stroke victim), Hillerman's depiction of white America is characteristically unattractive. White people are largely motivated by greed and/or socio/psychopathy; they don't care for the elderly and abandon them to bleak nursing homes; they don't demonstrate a sense of community or family. Chee is troubled by what he sees, and the only favorable comparison he draws is between the (relative) comfort of a hospital room when injured compared to being sick in his grandmother's hogan, which was cold. Otherwise it is clear that he finds nothing to admire or appreciate in what he sees.
Which is why it's so weird that he is in love with Mary Landon, who made such an unfavorable impression in People of Darkness, the first Chee mystery. Mary wants him to join the FBI, which Jim knows means leaving his people and the land he loves. That also means abandoning his ambition to become a singer, and, in his mind, betray his people's traditions and the Navajo Way. Yet he tells himself that he's willing to do it. What's surprising is how that conflict resolves.
Spoiler
Mary, who never appears in the novel, except as Chee recalls moments while thinking of her, writes a letter telling him that she understands that Chee choosing the life of a white man will destroy the man he is, even if he does his best to accept his decision. She chooses to return to her family, to give herself time to figure out if she's willing to move to the reservation and raise their children as Navajo. So the annoying character of People of Darkness, who showed little to no respect for Chee's culture, comes to understand its value and importance to him. She loves and values him enough not to ask him to make that sacrifice, instead giving herself time to decide if she's willing to make that sacrifice.The mystery is clever, but it takes back seat to Chee's personal dilemma and the grim backdrop of impoverished LA. I did like the character of Margaret Sosi; she consistently demonstrates greater common sense than our hero.