Seldom Disappointed: A Memoir
Tony Hillerman looks back on his life from a Depression-era childhood in Oklahoma through World War II, journalism, and university work to his late-blooming career as a novelist. The memoir is understated and warm, tracing how chance and family shaped the writer he became.
作品情報
Expect little, and life may still hand you more than you planned.
An Agatha Award-winning memoir that traces Tony Hillerman's life with quiet assurance. It moves from a hard childhood and wartime service to journalism, teaching, and the late start of his fiction career, all filtered through family ties and understated humor.
レビュー要約
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Readers value the way the memoir gathers Hillerman's childhood, military service, journalism, teaching, and later fiction career into one coherent life story. Some also feel it works best as a companion to his novels rather than as a deeply introspective literary memoir.
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Its appeal lies in the warm, witty voice and in the pleasure of watching an author take shape through memory rather than through spectacle. Readers who value quiet recollection tend to respond especially well to it.
書籍情報
- 出版社
- Harper
- 発売日
- 2001-10-02
- ページ数
- 352ページ
- 言語
- 英語
- サイズ
- 15.56 x 2.87 x 23.5 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780060194451
- ISBN-10
- 0060194456
- 価格
- 9137 JPY
- カテゴリ
- 洋書/Biographies & Memoirs/Memoirs
When Tony Hillerman looks back at seventy-six years spent getting from hardtimes farm boy to bestselling author, he sees lots of evidence that Providence was poking him along. For example, when an absentminded Army clerk left him off the hospital ship taking the wounded home from France, the mishap put him on a collision course with a curing ceremony held for two Navajo Marines, thereby providing the grist for a writing career that now sees his books published in sixteen languages around the world and often on bestseller lists. Or, for example, when his agent told him his first novel was so bad that it would hurt both of their reputations, he nonetheless sent it to an editor, and that editor happened to like the Navajo stuff. In this wry and whimsical memoir, Hillerman offers frequent backward glances at where he found ideas for plots of his books and the characters that inhabit them. He takes us with him to death row, where he interviews a man about to die in the gas chamber and details how this murderer became Colton Wolf in one of his novels. He relates how flushing a solitary heron from a sandbar caused him to convert Joe Leaphorn from husband to widower, and how his self-confessed bias against the social elite solved the key plot problem in A Thief of Time. No child abuse stories here: The worst Hillerman can recall is being sent off to first grade (in a boarding school for Indian girls) clad in cute blue coveralls instead of the manly overalls his farm-boy peers all wore. Instead we get a good-natured trip through hard times in college; an infantry career in which he "rose twice to Private First Class" and also won a Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart; and, afterward, work as a truck driver, chain dragger, journalist, professor, and "doer of undignified deeds" for two university presidents. All this is colored by a love affair (now in its fifty-fourth year) with Marie, which involved raising six children, most of them adopted. Using the gifts of a talented novelist and reporter, seventy-six-year-old Tony Hillerman draws a brilliant portrait not just of his life but of the world around him.
Tony Hillerman (1925–2008), an Albuquerque, New Mexico, resident since 1963, was the author of 29 books, including the popular 18-book mystery series featuring Navajo police officers Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, two non-series novels, two children’s books, and nonfiction works. He had received every major honor for mystery fiction; awards ranging from the Navajo Tribal Council's commendation to France 's esteemed Grand prix de litterature policiere. Western Writers of America honored him with the Wister Award for Lifetime achievement in 2008. He served as president of the prestigious Mystery Writers of America, and was honored with that group’s Edgar Award and as one of mystery fiction’s Grand Masters. In 2001, his memoir, Seldom Disappointed, won both the Anthony and Agatha Awards for best nonfiction.
レビュー
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bisschen enttäuschend
ich liebe ja Tony Hillermans Figur Jim Chee. Der hat das Herz am rechten Fleck. Leider bleibt die Autobiografie sehr an der Oberfläche.
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Hillerman - the other side of the author on his own words
Interesting life of the author. Most enjoyable and enlightening. Style bit different from his western stories. Good book.
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The charming guy behind the great books
I’m a big Hillerman fan. I read this book to help get over the sadness of finishing all the Leaphorn and Chee mysteries. The parts of Hillerman's memoir I enjoyed most were his memories of a happy childhood in poverty in Oklahoma and his war years. As a mortar gunner in the infantry in World War II, Hillerman emerges as an incredibly amiable guy with a great sense of humor, not obviously heroic, but with such integrity and willingness to do his job, that he follows his orders bravely. He accepts his war wounds cheerfully, as he seems to accept every reversal. The only thing that gets him down is the long wait to find the woman of his dreams. And then he becomes such an enthusiastic and grateful husband, that you really have to love him. I also especially liked his descriptions of his early jobs as a newspaper reporter. Hillerman paints a lively picture of the whole crazy world of the newsroom before computers. Readers who want to know how writers get their ideas will enjoy the section in which Hillerman describes the inspiration of each of his book. Reading this you can sense his generosity of spirit. Despite being one of America's greatest mystery writers, he doesn't make a mystery of who he is or how he thinks. It was a real pleasure getting to know Hillerman. The essential goodness of Leaphorn and Chee comes directly from the personality of their author. The Navajo worldview is not very different from Hillerman's.
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Not Disappointed (mostly)
I was not disappointed but a little surprised so much of the book was about his early years. The war stories were amazing and remind you that the "greatest generation" label is not overstatement (my dad's his war time locations and experienced in Europe paralleled Hillerman's). I would have liked more on the background to his books (the Hopi and Navaho cultures) in a more systematic or thematic approach. But even so, I learned a lot about how he became such beloved author. His time as a professor was also interesting. I am now reading his short stories. I hope his daughter Ann will write another novel in her father's tradition to keep the genre alive.
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A great history of Tony's life
A good autobiography of Tony's life. I loved his Navajo books but this book caused me to have even more respect for him. He and Marie adopted 4 of their 5 kids just to give the kids a good home. I'm glad it all worked out so well. We are lucky to have his books, they are great stories.
関連する文学賞
- Agatha Awards 第14回（2001年） ・Excellence Award