I have read all or nearly all of Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mysteries set in the Indian culture of the American Southwest. In fact, I have visited the Four Corners area to see Teec Nos Pos Trading Post, the Tribal Police Station at Shiprock, and other locations from the books. I guess I had assumed that Hillerman grew up in the area and among the people there, so I was surprised to learn that he was an Oklahoma boy and did not move to New Mexico until his job took him there at mid-life. He was, however, familiar with the Indians in his part of Oklahoma.
A sizeable portion of the memoir recounts experiences as an Army "grunt" in World War II. He shows life from the perspective of the ordinary foot soldier (and war IS hell) and cites numerous incidents that helped to make "Army intelligence" an oxymoron. While in the Army he meets several people who later become inspirations for characters in his novels.
Home at the end of the war, with injuries that left him with imperfect vision and a limp, he went to college on the G.I. Bill and entered a career as a newsman, spending many years with UPI. He met "the love of his life," married her, and together he and his wife raised six children, five of them adopted.
Acting on a long-time dream of writing, he sold short pieces and finally found an agent, an editor, and a publisher willing to work with him and his ideas. And, as they say, "The rest is history."
Check status at GPL.
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