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Famous Like Me > Writer > D > Michael Dorris

Profile of Michael Dorris on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Michael Dorris  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 30th January 1945
   
Place of Birth: Louisville, Kentucky, USA
   
Profession: Writer
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Michael Dorris (January 30, 1945 - April 11, 1997) was a prominent Native American novelist and scholar. His most famous works include the non-fiction The Broken Cord and the novel A Yellow Raft in Blue Water. He was married to author Louise Erdrich. He committed suicide in 1997.

Biography

Dorris, born in Concord, NH to Jim and Mary Besy (Burkhardt) Dorris in Louisville, Kentucky, was of mixed Modoc Indian, Irish, and French blood. In 1971, he was one of the first unmarried men in the United States to adopt a child. His adopted son, a three-year-old Lakota boy named Reynold Abel, was eventually diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Dorris' struggles to understand and care for his son became the subject of his famous work The Broken Cord (in which he uses the pseudonym "Adam" for his son). Dorris went on to adopt two more Native American children, Jeffrey Sava in 1974 and Madeline Hannah in 1976, who probably both suffered from fetal alcohol effect.

In 1981, he married Erdrich, whom he met while teaching at Dartmouth College. She adopted his three children, and the couple also bore three children: Persia Andromeda, Pallas Antigone, and Aza Marion. Erdrich and Dorris contributed to one another's writing and wrote together under the pseudonym Milou North.

In 1991, Reynold Abel was hit by a car and killed. In 1995, Dorris and Erdrich unsuccessfully pursued a court cases against Jeffrey Sava, whom they claimed was threatening them physically. Shortly afterward, Dorris and Erdrich separated and began divorce proceedings. On April 10, 1997, Dorris used a combination of suffocation, drugs, and alcohol to commit suicide in the Brick Tower Motor Inn in Concord, New Hampshire. Shortly before his death, allegations surfaced of possible abuse against one of his daughters, but the case files were closed with his death and never substantiated or disapproved. In conversations with friends before his death, Dorris maintained his innocence, and his lack of faith that the legal system would exonerate him.

Scholarship

He received his B.A. from Georgetown University in 1967, and a master's degree in philosophy from Yale University in 1970. In 1972, Dorris founded Dartmouth College's Native American Studies department.

The Broken Cord helped provoke Congress and to approve legislation to warn of the dangers of drinking alcohol during pregnancy. Dorris won the 1989 National Book Critics Circle award for the book for nonfiction.


Partial Bibliography

  • Native Americans: Five Hundred Years After, with photographs by Joseph C. Farber, Crowell (New York City), 1977.
  • A Guide to Research on North American Indians, American Library Association, 1983.
  • A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, Holt (New York, NY), 1987.
  • The Broken Cord: A Family's Ongoing Struggle with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Harper (New York City), 1989
  • (With Erdrich) The Crown of Columbus, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1991.
  • (With Erdrich) Route Two and Back, Lord John, 1991.
  • Morning Girl, Hyperion (New York, NY), 1992.
  • Rooms in the House of Stone, Milkweed Editions (Minneapolis), 1993.
  • Working Men, Holt, 1993.
  • Paper Trail, HarperCollins, 1994.
  • Guests, Hyperion, 1995.
  • Sees behind Trees, Hyperion, 1996.
  • Cloud Chamber, Scribners (New York, NY), 1997.
  • The Window, Hyperion, 1997.
  • (Editor) The Most Wonderful Books: Writers on Discovering the Pleasures of Reading, Milkweed Editions, 1997.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Michael Dorris