American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Numerous superlatives could be used to describe Michael Dorrids most recent book, The Broken Cord, released in July of 1989. Dedicated to both his wife, Louise Erdrich, and "our brave son," who, he acknowledges, is "its true and ongoing creator," the work painfully but powerfully chronicles almost eighteen years of struggle with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), the affliction that burdens Adam, whom he adopted at age three. Always, Dorris reluctantly concludes in the final paragraph of his heart-rending analysis, Adam will remain "a drowning man" for whom "there is no shore." In a provocative article appearing below one of the many favorable reviews that The Broken Cord has received, poet and novelist Jay Parini asserts that "serious writers who write a lot of books and who experiment with different kinds of writing will suffer for it. The critics won't keep up with them. Their books will be reviewed in isolation from previous works. . . ." Parini's wisdom is striking, for in the accompanying review, there is not a single mention of A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, Dorris's novel of two years earlier. Despite her familiarity with The Broken Cordor, perhaps, because of it-reviewer Patricia Guthrie elects a focus and parameters that preclude even the briefest mention of Dorris’s first novel, or of any of the other penetrating writings he has produced during the last two decades. Apparently, a compelling work can rivet a reviewer or critic to just that work; its power is simultaneously bondage, nullifying the possibility of comparisons, contrasts, and linkages.