SOURCE: "Tribal Roots: Exploring the Fate of an American Indian Artist," in Chicago Tribune—Books, October 1, 1989, p. 3.

An American critic, essayist, novelist, and editor, Larson is the author of American Indian Fiction (1978). In the following excerpt from a review of The Ancient Child, he praises Momaday's "poetic" depiction of a protagonist who recovers his Native heritage, but contends that the novel is disrupted by irrelevant subplots.

For most American readers, N. Scott Momaday's first novel, House Made of Dawn (awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1969) presented a disturbing picture of American Indian life on the edge. Abel, the main character, had served valiantly in World War II but found no affinity with tribal life after his return to the reservation. His reassimilation was thwarted by alcohol and violence. His renewal with the land and his people was clouded in mystical ambiguity. That sense of returning to one's tribal roots...