Michael Dorris

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Michael Anthony Dorris (January 30, 1945<ref name="Sharp2006">Template:Cite book</ref> – April 10, 1997) was an American novelist and scholar who was the first Chair of the Native American Studies program at Dartmouth College.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His works include the novel A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987) and the memoir The Broken Cord (1989).

The Broken Cord, which won the 1989 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction, was about dealing with his adopted son, who had fetal alcohol syndrome, and the widespread damage among children born with this problem. The work helped provoke Congress to approve legislation to warn of the dangers of drinking alcohol during pregnancy.<ref name="O'Reilly2010">Template:Cite book</ref>

He was married to author Louise Erdrich, and the two had a family of six children. They collaborated in some of their writing. They separated in 1995, and then divorced in 1996. He killed himself in 1997 while police were investigating allegations that he had sexually abused his daughters.

BiographyEdit

Michael Dorris was born in Louisville, Kentucky<ref name="Sharp2006"/><ref name="COLIN COVERT">Template:Cite news</ref> to Mary Besy (née Burkhardt) and Jim Dorris. (The senior Dorris was later reported as mixed race, with a Native American father.) His father died before Dorris was born (reportedly by suicide during WWII).Template:Citation needed Dorris was raised as an only child by his mother, who became a secretary for the Democratic Party.<ref name="NYM1997"/> Two maternal relatives reportedly also helped raise him, either two aunts,<ref name="NYM1997"/> or an aunt and his maternal grandmother.<ref name="Sharp2006"/> In his youth, he spent summers with his father's relatives on reservations in Montana and Washington state.<ref name="Sharp2006"/> The Washington Post reported that he was raised in part by a stepfather.

In an article published in New York Magazine two months after Dorris' death, a reporter quoted the Modoc tribal historian as saying, "Dorris was probably the descendant of a white man named Dorris whom records show befriended the Modocs on the West Coast just before and after the Modoc War of 1873. Even so, there is no record of a Dorris having been enrolled as an Indian citizen on the Klamath rolls."<ref name="NYM1997">Template:Cite book</ref> The Washington Post reported: "Dorris' father's mother, who was white, became pregnant by her Indian boyfriend, but, the times being what they were, she could not marry him. She later married a white man named Dorris."<ref>Streitfield 1997</ref>

Dorris received his BA (cum laude) in English and Classics from Georgetown University in 1967 and a Master's degree from Yale University in anthropology in 1971, after beginning studies for a theater degree.<ref name="Sharp2006"/> He did his field work in Alaska, studying the effects of offshore drilling on the Native Alaskan communities.<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/> At a time of rising Native American activism, in 1972, Dorris helped form Dartmouth College's Native American Studies department,<ref name="rawson">Template:Cite news</ref> and served as its first chair.<ref name="O'Reilly2010"/>

In 1971, he became one of the first unmarried men in the United States to adopt a child.<ref name="rawson"/><ref name="LATimesObit"/> His adopted son, a 3-year-old Lakota boy named Reynold Abel, was eventually diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome. Dorris' struggle to understand and care for his son became the subject of his 1987 memoir The Broken Cord (in which he uses the pseudonym "Adam" for his son). Dorris adopted two more Native American children, Jeffrey Sava in 1974 and Madeline Hannah in 1976, both of whom also likely suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

He wrote the text to accompany the photographs of Joseph C. Farber in the book Native Americans: Five Hundred Years After (1975).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1977 for his work in Anthropology & Cultural Studies.<ref name="guggenheim">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1980, he took his three adopted children with him from Cornish, New Hampshire to New Zealand, where he had arranged a year's sabbatical.<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/>

After returning to the United States in 1981, he married Louise Erdrich,<ref name="O'Reilly2010"/> a writer of Anishinaabe, German-American, and Métis descent. They had met 10 years earlier while he was teaching at Dartmouth and she was a student.<ref name="NYM1997"/> During his sabbatical in New Zealand, Dorris and Erdrich had begun corresponding regularly by mail.<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/> After their marriage, she adopted his three children. They had three daughters together: Persia Andromeda, Pallas Antigone, and Aza Marion.<ref name="O'Reilly2010"/>

Dorris and Erdrich contributed to each other's writing<ref name="O'Reilly2010"/> and together wrote romance fiction under the pseudonym Milou North to supplement their income. Many of the latter pieces were published in the British magazine Woman.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Erdrich dedicated her novels The Beet Queen (1986),<ref name="NYM1997"/>Tracks<ref name="Quennet2001">Template:Cite book</ref> (1988), and The Bingo Palace<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> to Dorris. The family lived in Cornish, New Hampshire.<ref name="Coltelli1992">Template:Cite book</ref>

While teaching at Dartmouth, Dorris frequently mentored other students. He was part of the successful effort to eliminate the college's Indian mascot.<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/> In 1985, after the couple had received major grants, the family moved for a year to Northfield, Minnesota.<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/>

Beginning in 1986, Dorris' son Sava was sent to boarding school and military school.<ref name="NYM1997"/> Madeline began attending boarding school when she was 12.<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/> After the success of The Broken Cord in 1989, and an advance of $1.5 million for the outline of Crown of Columbus, Dorris quit teaching at Dartmouth to become a full-time writer.<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/> In 1991, his oldest son Reynold Abel was hit by a driver and killed.<ref name="Couser2004">Template:Cite book</ref> Dorris, Erdrich, and their three daughters moved to Kalispell, Montana, allegedly because of death threats Sava had made towards them.<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/> They later returned to New Hampshire in 1993.<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/> They finally moved to the Piper Mansion in Minneapolis.<ref name="NYM1997"/>

Sava sent a letter to the couple in 1994 threatening to "destroy their lives" and demanding money. Dorris and Erdrich took Sava to court for attempted felony theft. The first jury deadlocked, and the next year Sava was acquitted of the charges.<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/>

The couple separated in 1995. Dorris went for treatment of alcohol abuse at Hazelden.<ref name="NYM1997"/> Dorris and Erdrich divorced in 1996.<ref name="Carnes2005"/> Dorris considered himself "addicted to" Erdrich and fell into a depression.<ref name="Carnes2005"/>

Sex abuse allegations and suicideEdit

Madeline<ref name="COLIN COVERT"/> and two of Dorris' biological daughters made allegations of abuse against him.<ref name="O'Reilly2010"/> In March 1997, Dorris made a suicide attempt.<ref name="Carnes2005"/> On April 10, 1997, he used a combination of suffocation, drugs, and alcohol to end his life in the Brick Tower Motor Inn in Concord, New Hampshire. It was later disclosed that during a therapy session, one of his daughters alleged that he had sexually abused her.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In conversations with friends, Dorris maintained his innocence and his lack of faith that the legal system would exonerate him without his "demolishing" his wife and children in a "vicious" court trial.<ref name="Carnes2005"/> With his death, the criminal investigations into the sexual abuse allegations were closed.<ref name="salon">Template:Cite journal</ref>

ReceptionEdit

Dorris was the author, co-author, or editor of a dozen books in the genres of fiction, memoirs and essays, and non-fiction.

His Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987) has been named among the "finest literary debuts of the late 20th century."<ref name="rawson"/> It tells the story of three generations of women, in a non-linear fashion, from multiple perspectives, a technique that Dorris would frequently use in his later writings as well.<ref name="Carnes2005">Template:Cite book</ref>

His memoir The Broken Cord is credited with bringing "international attention to the problem of fetal alcohol syndrome" ("FAS").<ref name="LATimesObit">Template:Cite news</ref> The book won a number of awards, including the Christopher Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award for general non-fiction.<ref name="O'Connor2011">Template:Cite book</ref> It is credited with inspiring Congressional legislation on FAS.<ref name="Carnes2005"/> It was adapted as a made-for TV film,<ref name="Carnes2005"/> with Jimmy Smits playing Dorris.<ref name="NYM1997"/> In an essay originally published in the WicaSa Review, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn criticizes Dorris and Erdrich (who had written the foreword), claiming that they were calling for the jailing of alcoholic Native mothers during their pregnancies to forestall fetal alcohol syndrome.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

When he and Erdrich co-wrote The Crown of Columbus (the only fiction they officially share credit for, although they frequently stated that they collaborated on other works), each individually wrote a preliminary draft of each section.<ref name="Laird2000">Template:Cite book</ref> Within the novel, various characters are writing collaborators. The work has been characterized as an autobiographical representation of the creative "pleasure and problems" that Dorris and Erdrich shared.<ref name="Karell2002">Template:Cite book</ref>

In Cloud Chamber (1997), Dorris continued the story of the families introduced in Yellow Raft in Blue Water, telling "the hard story of hard people living difficult lives with much courage".<ref>LA Times Book Review</ref> It was described as written in "evocative prose".<ref>Publishers Weekly</ref><ref name="Lesher2000">Template:Cite book</ref>

Dorris published three works for young adults during his lifetime; The Window was published posthumously. These novels also explore his themes of identity and sibling rivalry.<ref name="Carnes2005"/>

WorksEdit

Native Americans Five Hundred Years After (with photographer Joseph Farber, 1975)
A Guide to Research on North American Indians (with Mary Byler and Arlene Hirschfelder, 1983)
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987)
The Broken Cord: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the Loss of the Future (1989)
The Crown of Columbus (with Louise Erdrich, 1991)
Route Two and Back (with Louise Erdrich, 1991)
Morning Girl (1992)
Working Men (1993)
Rooms in the House of Stone (1993)
Paper Trail (essays, 1994)
Guests (1995)
Sees Behind Trees (1996)
Cloud Chamber (1997)
The Window (1997)
The Most Wonderful Books: Writers on Discovering the Pleasures of Reading, edited (1997)

ReferencesEdit

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Other sources

"Michael Dorris." Newsmakers 1997, Issue 4. Gale Research, 1997.
Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2005.
Gleick, Elizabeth. "An imperfect union." Time, April 28, 1997, v149 n17 p68(2)
"Michael Anthony Dorris." Notable Native Americans. Gale Research, 1995.

External linksEdit

Guide to the Papers of Michael Dorris at Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College
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