Ted Isaacs, a young anthropologist learning under the watchful eye of archeologist Chester Reynolds, is the man who Susanne plans to marry. Unfortunately, her feelings aren’t reciprocated, and he is far too married to his work to take their relationship as seriously as Susanne would like.
While Ted is fiercely ambitious and passionate about his work, Susanne spends time living in a commune and following a hippie way of life. While it seems that money isn’t that important to Susanne, it is all-important to Ted, who proves that he will stop at nothing to escape poverty and achieve professional success. One of the instances in which Ted shows that he doesn’t really care about Susanne is when Joe Leaphorn tells Ted that he is concerned about Susanne’s safety while she is living alone in the hippie commune. Ted’s response is to rebuff Leaphorn’s concerns, implying that Susanne isn’t really that...
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important to him.
Susanne may not always be particularly practical, but she is painfully aware that as much as she would like to marry Ted, it is unlikely to happen because his “wife” is his work. She acknowledges that when he finishes the project, he will become well-known and get a good job, implying that she knows she will not be with him in this next chapter of his life.
In Tony Hillerman's 1973 novel, Susanne is a young White woman who is friendly with George Bowlegs, a young Navajo man who has gone missing. Susanne has adopted a hippie lifestyle and lives for a time at a commune, Jason's Fleece, near the Navajo reservation. She becomes involved with a graduate student, Ted Isaacs, who is working with Professor Reynolds on the excavation of a presumed Folsom Man site.
The professor banishes Susanne from the archaeological site because he feels it necessary to protect the integrity and credibility of the site. He also has to keep the secret of his planting of evidence of the Folsom culture. Susanne meets up with Joe Leaphorn while hitching a ride. She becomes involved in the search for George, and she and Leaphorn go to Arizona to look for him.
Susanne has hopes of marrying Ted Isaacs, but he is in the midst of trying to build his academic career. He is more focused on the dig than his romance with Susanne. When Leaphorn tries to warn Ted that Susanne could be in danger on her own at the commune, Ted rebuffs Leaphorn's warning and tells him to post a guard at the commune.
Susanne is not a student and does not seem to have the same kind of direction as Ted. The future of their relationship is left unresolved at the novel's conclusion.
In the novel Dance Hall of the Dead, Susanne is a hippie living near the Indian reservation on which the murders happened. As the detective investigates, he interviews Susanne, a woman who knew George, one of the victims. She cooperates with the investigation and attempts to help the police find the missing boy.
Joe, the detective, discerns that Susanne shares a mutual attraction with Ted Isaacs. Isaacs is an anthropologist who works with Professor Reynolds and who is later revealed as the murderer. Susanne expresses a desire for marriage, but she acknowledges that it’s unlikely. While the two are infatuated, he is too busy with work, and when he is finished with his research, he will be too prominent and well-known to care about her.
Dance Hall of the Dead is a 1973 detective novel written by American novelist Tony Hillerman, in which his famed hero, detective Joe Leaphorn, must solve the murder of a young Navajo boy named Ernesto Cata and the mysterious disappearance of his friend George Bowlegs.
Joe's investigation leads him to a Hippie commune named Jason's Fleece (in reference to the myth of the Golden Fleece). This is where we meet Susanne, a young woman who knew George and tries to help with the investigation. Susanne plans to marry Ted Isaacs, a young anthropologist who works with Professor Chester Reynolds (the murderer of the young boys).
We learn of her intentions in a conversation between Joe and Susanne, in which Joe mentions that Ted and Susanne mutually like each other. Joe says, "You like him. He likes you. You could sort of look after one another until I can find George," to which Susanne replies that they can't:
He's got to finish that project and when he does he'll be just about famous, and he'll get a good faculty appointment, and he'll have everything he's never had before. No more being dirt poor and no more being nobody anybody ever heard of.