SOURCE: "Beyond the Novel Chippewa-style: Gerald Vizenor's Post-Modern Fiction," in Four American Indian Literary Masters: N Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Gerald Vizenor, University of Oklahoma Press, 1982, pp. 124-48.

In the following excerpt, Velie provides an overview of Vizenor's works and argues that Vizenor's writing can be best understood through a consideration of Anishinabe beliefs, his life experiences, and the nature of the postmodern novel.

Gerald Vizenor is a mixed-blood Chippewa or, as the Chippewas prefer to call themselves, Anishinabe. His father's family was from the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. Vizenor's father, Clement, who was half Anishinabe and half white, left the reservation for Minneapolis, where he worked as a painter and paperhanger for three years before he was murdered by a mugger, who nearly severed his head while cutting his throat. The chief suspect, a large black man, was apprehended but was...