[In the following review, the critic provides an overview of Vizenor's works, commenting on the author's varied forms.]

Complainingabout those "wily, more competent Indians" who could use their knowledge of the White Man to make him appear in a bad light, the former head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Dillon S. Myer wrote to Interior Secretary Douglas McKay in 1953: "[They] are capable of making the Bureau … appear as a group of paternalistic bureaucrats who will not allow them to handle their own internal affairs …"

Indians are expected to use education as the way out of the misery of poverty and discrimination, and join ranks with those who have helped them. This makes a "good Indian." A "bad Indian" either rejects the offer or uses it to his own ends, which means bucking the status quo.

So what do you do with an Indian who masters the system and then tries to subvert it, using every trick he knows? Rather than run and hide behind the safety of academia (he was professor of literature at the University of Oklahoma last year, following several years at Santa Cruz), Gerald Vizenor has laid himself out in his 1990 autobiographical work Interior Landscapes. Vizenor has stirred the literary world, not only with his range but with the excellence of his thought and the dry cutting edge of his insight. He has been praised by Indians and non-Indians alike.

The trail of books behind him ranges from wild magical fantasy (Bearheart—the Heirship Chronicles) to gut-wrenching documentary (Crossbloods) and from introspective sojourns (Interior Landscapes) to near ethnographic documentation (The People Named Chippewa). Such variety in writing forms seems at once prolific and insecure. It might appear that Vizenor is trying to fill the library all by himself. Apparently Vizenor has used the art of writing to express as many facets of himself as possible, with a type of creative artistry usually reserved for actors—cowboy in one script, sailor in the next, and so on. Whereas writers are generally supposed to settle on a format and stay put, what Gerald Vizenor has accomplished is a complete documentation of the concerns and hopes of a 20th Century Indian. His desire to convey the twists and turns of Indian mythos is demonstrated in the novels, where his creatures play our the dramas of human desires, foolishness and visions. In Bearheart he uses the English language in ways that American writers might never have dreamed. With characters' names like Proude Cedarfair, Perfect Crow, Little Big Mouse, Scintilla Shruggles, Sister Caprice, and Jordan Coward, any presumptions are immediately scrambled. Interactions among these folks range from sensitive encounters to almost pornographically described sexual forays, to outright battles. Underlying this confusion are the themes of Indian intellectual life. The overall effect is to cause one to wonder at the true nature of reality.

This may dislodge the unwary reader from his or her own mythology, and allow alien thoughts to enter. Unchecked, it can lead to a rethinking of morals and values. One might even find an alternative right and wrong. Yet these results can easily be blocked by dismissing them all as mere fiction. History, however, is harder to ignore. As a reporter on the Minneapolis Tribune, Gerald Vizenor interviewed Indian leaders of the day as well as politicians and common folk involved in the opposing struggles to control and liberate Indians. Crossbloods documents stories, essays, and editorials he produced to give insight into the forces at work within and upon American Indians today. Reporters can be attacked for slanting their stories or coloring the history they record, but it is much harder to argue with the spoken word of oral history.

In A People Named Chippewa, Vizenor has brought the truth of the Chippewa to America in their own words. His interviews with tribal members bring their truth to public record, at a time when ethnology and anthropology are denigrated sciences. Entertainment is king today, not fieldwork; yet Vizenor has used his success to force the issue. His ability to gain acceptance as a noted writer brings a latitude to what his publishers will accept; but when does all of this start to smack of "wily" old Indian? Despite all the finer exposition, the true Gerald Vizenor still seems to be tucked away somewhere, hiding. What he has presented us with are his insights into Indians, non-Indians and the process of cultural warfare. So which kind of Indian is Gerald Vizenor? Whatever kind of Indians there are, perhaps.