The Names: A Memoir

A review quoted on the back of The Names calls it "a Native American version of Roots," an obvious comparison at the time (both books came out in 1976, and Roots was an immediate blockbuster) for an American story of non-white ancestry, but that's about where the similarities end. There is ancestry in The Names, but, unlike Roots, it is equally the story of an individual consciousness, of a writer coming to understand the world. The story has a forward movement to it, from his forebears to his own coming of age, but it is hardly linear, as Momaday circles back through memory, his own and his ancestors', to construct his own imagination. His "I" is often a "we," but it is no less concrete for that, full of a wonder that's grounded in the details of personality and place and that makes his well-observed existence seem like a miracle.