Michael Dorris

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Associated Press (obituary date 14 April 1997)

SOURCE: "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Author Michael Dorris Dies," in Associated Press, April 14, 1997.

[In the following obituary, the writer summarizes Dorris's literary achievements.]

Michael Dorris, who told the story of his adopted son's battle with fetal alcohol syndrome in his award-winning book The Broken Cord, has died, an apparent suicide, police said. He was 52.

The Concord [New Hampshire] Monitor reported that Dorris was found Friday afternoon in a motel room and said Dorris apparently suffocated himself using a plastic bag.

Police Lt. Paul Murphy confirmed the cause of death was apparent suicide, but would give no details.

Dorris and author Louise Erdrich, with whom he wrote the 1991 best-selling novel The Crown of Columbus, were divorcing.

Dorris, who held degrees from Georgetown and Yale universities, had been on leave as an English professor at Dartmouth College, where, as an anthropology professor, he founded the Native American Studies department in 1972 and headed it until 1985.

In 1971, Dorris, who was of part American Indian descent, became one of the first bachelors in the country allowed to adopt a child. He later adopted two more children, and had three more children after his 1981 marriage to Erdrich.

His adopted son Reynold, whom he called "Adam" in his book, was born on a Sioux reservation to a woman who eventually died of alcohol poisoning.

The Broken Cord, published in 1989, detailed Reynold's struggles with incurable mental handicaps caused by his birth mother's drinking. The book helped spread understanding of the problem of fetal alcohol syndrome and won a National Book Critics Circle award in the nonfiction category.

In a 1989 Associated Press interview, Dorris said that even as a young adult, Reynold lived in a group home and had to be reminded to bathe, change his clothes, even eat.

Writing the book, he said, did not prove "cathartic. One of the problems with this book is that it does not have an ending."

"It keeps going on. It's like constantly opening doors into a dark room."

Reynold has since died, and more heartbreak was in store for Dorris in 1995, when another adopted son, Jeffrey, stood trial on charges he used threats to try to get Dorris and his wife to give him $15,000 and publish a manuscript he wrote. Jeffrey Dorris was acquitted of one charge and a second was dismissed when jurors deadlocked.

Dorris' other nonfiction works include Native Americans: 500 Years After, A Guide to Research in Native American Studies and A Yellow Raft in Blue Water. His latest book, Cloud Chamber, a novel, was published earlier this year.

His wife wrote Love Medicine and other acclaimed novels about American Indians.

Dorris was working on a follow-up to The Broken Cord called Matter of Conscience, scheduled to be published in 1998. The book is about fetal alcohol effect, a slightly less debilitating disease than full-blown fetal alcohol syndrome.

Dartmouth President James Freedman said Dorris "was beloved by a generation of Dartmouth students, whose lives were touched with his humanity and idealism."

"The Native American Studies program … will stand as one of his enduring contributions to Dartmouth and to American higher education."

Dorris was to have started working as a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on March 31, but canceled because of illness, said Leslie Cooney, coordinator of the English department's creative writing program.

Los Angeles Times (obituary date 15 April 1997)

SOURCE: "Michael Dorris; Chronicler of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome," in Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1997, p. A18.

[The following obituary focuses on the legacy of Dorris's life and works.]

Writer Michael Dorris, whose book about raising a brain-damaged child, The Broken Cord, brought international attention to the problem of fetal alcohol syndrome, has been found dead in a motel room, an apparent suicide, police said Monday.

Concord police said Dorris, 52, an author, anthropologist and founder of Dartmouth College's Native American Studies Program, apparently suffocated himself Friday with a plastic bag. An autopsy report is pending.

Dorris, who was married to best-selling novelist Louise Erdrich, co-wrote The Crown of Columbus with her in 1991 after a publisher agreed to pay the couple $1.5 million on the basis of a five-page outline.

Of Irish, French and American Indian ancestry, Dorris was the author of two novels, including the recently published Cloud Chamber, but was best known for The Broken Cord, his best-selling 1989 memoir of adopting an American Indian child who suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome.

Dorris, who was one of the first unmarried American men to legally adopt a child, told the story of his son Reynold (using a pseudonym in the book), who suffered brain damage as a result of his mother's heavy drinking. The youth died at 23 in a car accident in 1992.

"You can't undo the past, you can't unwish someone's life, and that's the real tragedy here," Dorris told The Times shortly after the book was published. "It was years before we accepted the fact that [Reynold] was not going to change. You never want to accept that about a child, but he was always the little engine that couldn't get over the mountain, no matter how hard he tried."

Reflecting later on the youth's short life. Dorris wrote in an article for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "He lived for 23 years endured daily loneliness and confusion and hardship and frustration, and in all that time he never once did anything that was intentionally cruel or hurtful to another living creature.

"He was maddening in his inability to learn from experience, to grasp a larger picture. If only he had been able to learn how to cross the street in accordance with a green light."

Dorris' book drew international attention to the dangers children face if their mothers drink during pregnancy, and it led to moves in Congress to issue warnings about the risks.

The Georgetown- and Yale-educated Dorris adopted two other children, and had three more with Erdrich, whom he married in 1981. He had been working on a follow-up book to The Broken Cord, titled Matter of Conscience.

Rick Lyman (obituary date 15 April 1997)

SOURCE: An obituary for Michael Dorris, in The New York Times, April 15, 1997, p. B11.

[Below, Lyman recounts Dorris's literary career and personal life, noting his relationship with Erdrich, his academic colleagues, and professional associations.]

Michael Dorris, a prolific novelist, essayist, critic and educator who won the National Book Award in 1989 for The Broken Cord, about his adopted son's struggle with fetal alcohol syndrome, was found dead on Friday in a motel in Concord, N.H., where he had taken a room under an assumed name. He was 52.

Mr. Dorris was found in a room at the Brick Tower Motor Inn with a plastic bag over his head, the police said. Although the medical examiner's report was not to be completed until today, the police said he had apparently committed suicide. They said a note was found at the scene, but declined to give details.

Mr. Dorris's first success as a writer came with the publication of his first novel, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water in 1987. His greatest success, however, was A Broken Cord (1989), a work of nonfiction in which he chronicled the problems suffered by his son, Abel, who suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. The book brought national attention to the issue and helped spur Congress to approve legislation warning women of the dangers of drinking while pregnant. Abel Dorris was struck by a car and killed in 1992, at 23.

Michael Dorris, who was part American Indian, earned degrees in English at Georgetown University and anthropology at Yale University before founding the Native American Studies Program at Dartmouth College in 1972.

He was separated from his wife, the novelist Louise Erdrich, and friends said divorce proceedings were under way.

Mr. Dorris, a tall and handsome man with a shock of light-brown hair and a commanding presence, had had an extraordinarily intense and cooperative relationship with Ms. Erdrich. They worked so closely that it was often difficult for them to explain which of them had written which parts of their books or decide whose name should appear on the cover as author. Ms. Erdrich won fame on her own with books like The Beet Queen and Love Medicine.

The couple met at Dartmouth, where she was one of the first women admitted, in 1976. As recounted in The Broken Cord, they renewed their acquaintance three years later at a poetry reading Ms. Erdrich gave at Dartmouth and eventually married.

When he was single, Mr. Dorris had adopted his son and two daughters, all of American Indian descent; after he married Ms. Erdrich, she adopted them as well. Together, they had three more daughters, who live with Ms. Erdrich in Minneapolis.

Early in Ms. Erdrich's career, colleagues said, Mr. Dorris acted as her editor and agent. Later, as his own writing career blossomed, they worked together, editing and reworking each other's prose.

"We have both been interviewed separately, at different times," Ms. Erdrich said in 1986. "But when it comes to our work, it is almost awkward to be alone. We do the work together; we do everything together."

Mr. Dorris had been on tour to promote his most recent novel, The Cloud Chamber, published earlier this year by Scribner & Sons. In recent days, though, he had canceled some long-standing commitments, including a book signing and an appearance at a three-day celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Dartmouth Native American Studies Program, which began on Thursday.

This month he was to have begun a one-semester stint as Winton Chair Scholar at the University of Minnesota, teaching a course called "Topics in Advanced Creative Writing: Building Character."

Leslie Cooney, a coordinator of the university's creative writing program, said that Mr. Dorris's assistant had called shortly before the course was to have begun to say that Mr. Dorris was ill and would not be able to assume the visiting professorship.

Charles Rembar, a New York City publishing lawyer who represented both Mr. Dorris and Ms. Erdrich, said that Mr. Dorris had been uncharacteristically out of touch in recent weeks, but that "it didn't seem remarkable" because of the writer's recent grueling work schedule.

Susan Moldow, Mr. Dorris's editor at Scribner's, said that his separation from Ms. Erdrich had been "a source of considerable pain to him."

For years, the couple had lived in a farmhouse outside Cornish, N.H., but in recent years had moved to Minneapolis. Among the things that drew them together, Mr. Dorris told an interviewer, was that they both came from mixed-race backgrounds, including American Indian blood.

"I think you have to watch things very closely when you are marginal," Mr. Dorris said. "One observes and imagines a lot of things. It's impossible sometimes not to wish you were absolutely one thing."

With Ms. Erdrich, Mr. Dorris wrote The Crown of Columbus, a novel about Christopher Columbus, in 1991, and Route Two and Back, a travel memoir, the same year.

He also published a collection of essays, Paper Trail, in 1994; a collection of short stories, Working Men, in 1993, and several children's books, including The Window, newly published. At the time of his death, he was under contract to write A Matter of Conscience, also about fetal alcohol syndrome.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by two adopted daughters, Sava and Madeline, both of Denver; three other daughters, Persia, Pallas and Aza; and his mother, Mary B. Dorris of Louisville, Ky.

"From a publisher's point of view, it was incredible the amount of time he put in working," Ms. Moldow said. "And he was out there until the very end. He was on the road."

David Streitfeld (obituary date 15 April 1997)

SOURCE: "The Writer's Cloudy Final Chapter," in The Washington Post, April 15, 1997, p. D1.

[In the obituary below, Streitfeld relates the shock that greeted news of Dorris's death.]

The literary world was shocked yesterday at the news that Michael Dorris, a novelist and nonfiction writer seemingly at the top of his game, had killed himself.

Dorris, 52, checked into a motel in Concord, N.H., under an assumed name. He used a plastic bag to suffocate himself, police said. His body was found on Friday but the news did not filter out to the media until late Sunday night.

A man of many talents, Dorris wrote novels for adults and children, essays, short stories and nonfiction. One of his key works is the best-selling The Broken Cord, which chronicled the crisis of an adopted child with fetal alcohol syndrome. It became a hit ABC-TV movie in 1992. His novel A Yellow Raft in Blue Water has sold hundreds of thousands of copies; a second novel this past winter garnered strong reviews.

Friends said Dorris had first tried to kill himself on March 28, but had been interrupted. He was then hospitalized for a short time for "exhaustion."

"I'm not only a novelist but a psychologist, and I'm totally shocked," mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman said on hearing the news yesterday morning. "I saw him in October … I didn't see any sign of depression."

Bill Shinker, who had published three books by Dorris and had another under contract, said, "It's incomprehensible, totally incomprehensible. He was in the prime of life. It doesn't make sense from so many perspectives."

Dorris and his wife, the acclaimed novelist Louise Erdrich, 42, were in the middle of a divorce that was apparently very acrimonious. "He was devastated by it," Shinker said. "Who wouldn't be in that situation? It's a natural reaction." The couple, who lived most recently in Minneapolis, had three young daughters together.

"It doesn't compute," said Caroline Leavitt, a novelist for whom Dorris has been acting as agent. In e-mail communications with her, Dorris would sometimes say things like, "You don't know what's going on. You don't want to know the melodrama." She did, of course, but he would never be explicit.

"He was so determined that, although this was a terrible time, he would get over it and be happy," Leavitt said. "He wasn't going to live his life alone like his mother did. He was going to find someone else. He really didn't bear any animosity toward Louise."

His novel Cloud Chamber, published in January, included a dedication that, even in the midst of his despair, he did not wish to change. "For Louise," it said simply. "Who found the song and gave me voice."

One of Dorris's last messages to Leavitt, in February, said, "Pray for me."

Via her lawyer-agent, Erdrich issued a brief statement yesterday. "Michael did a great deal of good for the world. He is deeply grieved by his family and friends." She suggested that any donations in his memory go to the Seattle Foundation for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

In the early '70s, Dorris, who was part Modoc Indian, was widely credited with being the first single father in the country to adopt. The child was a Native American suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome. Dorris, who founded the Native American Studies Program at Dartmouth, later adopted two more children, also with FAS.

He recounted the experience of the eldest child, Abel, in The Broken Cord in 1989. The book won a National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction and prompted thousands of letters to Dorris by people concerned about the problem. The story, however, ended in tragedy: Abel was killed in 1991 after being hit by a car.

Two years ago, the middle child, Sava, stood trial on charges of trying to extort $15,000 from Dorris and Erdrich. A jury acquitted him on one charge and deadlocked on a second, leading to its dismissal.

The mere fact that Dorris and Erdrich were splitting up was unbelievable to some. Their marriage, as several friends noted sadly yesterday, was one of the great literary love stories of the 1980s. They not only had brilliant careers but were very public about their esteem and passion for each other.

"I would not be writing if I were not working with her." Dorris said in 1987. The following year, Erdrich called Dorris "a spiritual guide, a therapist, someone who allows you to go down to where you just exist and where you are in contact with those very powerful feelings that you had in your childhood." She, too, said she would never be able to go on writing without him.

The dedications of their books made their feelings clear. "To Michael: Complice in every word, essential as air," said her 1986 novel The Beet Queen. "For Louise: Companion through every page, through every day. Compeer," said A Yellow Raft, which appeared in 1987.

While different names were on most of the books, the couple insisted in interviews that everything was done together. They compared their collaborative process to the Vulcan "mind meld" on "Star Trek."

In 1985, Dorris explained his role in the writing of Erdrich's novel Love Medicine: "We talked about the plots, the characterization, the conceptualization, the order, all that stuff, and then, as a draft or part of a draft is finished, Louise gives it to me, and I read it, and make suggestions and comments or reinforcements, as the case may be."

And then somehow, it all went wrong. Nevertheless, a friend said, "he said to me a number of times, their intention was to still work together."

His editor at Scribner, Susan Moldow, said, "I don't know what was going on, and I don't want to speculate. I don't think suicide is ever the result of any one cause."

In a front-page review in The Washington Post Book World three months ago, Alice McDermott lauded Cloud Chamber for "its vivid, intelligent portrayal of our perpetual, universal and mostly inextinguishable longing for both transcendence and (here's the rub) communion in love."

The book sold well for literary fiction, making bestseller lists in San Francisco, Boston and elsewhere.

As part of his book tour late last month, Dorris read here before about 350 people in PEN/Faulkner's literary series. He read from Cloud Chamber and a forthcoming children's book, both of which feature the teenager named Rayona who starred in Yellow Raft.

"Rayona's a character I can't let alone, or she won't let me alone," he told the crowd. "Somebody said that in my next life I will come back as a 14-year-old girl. I said, 'That's this life. Next life, I'll come back as me.'"

During the Q&A part of the program, he mentioned Erdrich once or twice. He never let on that they were getting divorced, nor gave any sort of tiny clue, even in retrospect, that he would try to kill himself within a week. He was practically bubbling over with projects for the future. Everyone lined up to have a book signed. Unlike many writers during lengthy autograph sessions, he was sweet and patient to the very end.

Afterward, he had enough energy to go to Blues Alley to hear Melba Moore. Lou Stovall, a member of the PEN/Faulkner board who went with him, said that "he referred to Louise only in the abstract—I knew he was feeling estranged from something—but there wasn't anything that didn't seem life-affirming about his whole demeanor."

Earlier that day, Dorris had visited a class at Cardozo High School under the PEN/Faulkner visiting writers program. Dorris particularly wanted to go to Cardozo because he had volunteered there when a student at Georgetown in the late '60s.

He talked to 30 advanced-placement English students. "It was just a great warm experience," said their teacher, Frazier O'Leary.

Yesterday, O'Leary had to break the news that Dorris had killed himself. He had the students write about their feelings, and then they read the essays aloud. "They were very upset. We talked about how they couldn't understand how someone with so much life, and who seemed to have so much together, could do that," the teacher said. "This is definitely something they won't ever forget."

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