Interior Landscapes by Gerald R. Vizenor
"Interior Landscapes: Autobiographical Myths and Metaphors" is an imaginative autobiography by mixed-blood Native American author Gerald R. Vizenor, recognized for its unique blend of personal narrative and cultural myth-making. Winning the 1990 Josephine Miles PEN Award, the work explores Vizenor's life experiences, including his childhood struggles with loss and adversity, such as the murder of his father and his tumultuous relationship with his mother. Embracing the identity of the Native American trickster, he uses humor and storytelling to reinterpret his life and confront the realities of racism. Vizenor's military service in the Army, particularly his time in Japan, plays a significant role in shaping his literary voice, leading to a deep connection with Japanese literature and a fondness for haiku poetry. The autobiography also highlights Vizenor's activism, detailing his efforts in civil rights and support for urban Native American communities. The narrative culminates in a reflection on dreams and the concept of "rights of remains," linking personal memory to broader cultural themes. Through this work, Vizenor invites readers to engage with his journey of self-discovery and the importance of storytelling in the face of historical and personal trauma.
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Interior Landscapes by Gerald R. Vizenor
First published: 1990
The Work
Mixed-blood Native American novelist, poet, essayist, and critic Gerald Vizenor’s imaginative autobiography Interior Landscapes: Autobiographical Myths and Metaphors (winner of the 1990 Josephine Miles PEN Award), recounts the author’s triumphs, tragedies, and confrontations with racism. Throughout his autobiography, Vizenor adopts the mythic identity of the Native American trickster, who uses humor and stories to reinvent his world. “My stories are interior landscapes,” Vizenor writes, and, as trickster autobiography, these stories about Vizenor’s life enable him to mold his experience of his own life.
Vizenor had a rough childhood by any standard. After his father was stabbed to death, his mother left him with foster families while she vanished for years at a time. Later, she returned and married an alcoholic who beat him. When he was eighteen, Vizenor escaped into the Army. In the Army, Vizenor traveled to Japan, one of the most important experiences of his life. Views of Mount Fuji, a romance with a Japanese woman, and his first visit to a brothel inspired him to write haiku. After his discharge from the Army, Vizenor stayed in Japan. He later returned to the United States to study at New York University and the University of Minnesota, where he discovered writers such as Lafcadio Hearn, Jack London, and Thomas Wolfe. He also studied haiku in translation. Vizenor calls his discovery of Japanese literature his “second liberation.” His haikus won for him his first college teaching job, and his continuing fascination with the haiku form is demonstrated in the collections Two Wings the Butterfly (1962), Raising the Moon Vines (1964), Seventeen Chirps (1964), Empty Swings (1967), and Matsushima: Pine Island (1984).
Vizenor relates his experience as a community activist. As a Minneapolis Tribune reporter Vizenor organized civil rights protests and exposed illegal domestic operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. He wrote key articles about the funeral of Dane Michael White and the trial of Thomas James White Hawk. As a founding director of the American Indian Employment and Guidance Center, he combated the “new urban fur traders” and worked to get services for urban Indians who chose to leave the reservation.
Interior Landscapes ends in a haunted house in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Vizenor’s dreams are invaded by skinwalkers, lost souls from the world of the dead. This dream begins a meditation on the rights of remains that informs Vizenor’s writing of his autobiography, a “crossblood remembrance,” motivated by a trickster’s desire to weave the myths and metaphors of his own life.
Bibliography
Coltelli, Laura, ed. Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.
Vizenor, Gerald. “Head Water: An Interview with Gerald Vizenor.” Interview by Larry McCaffery and Tom Marshall. Chicago Review 39, nos. 3-4 (Summer-Fall, 1993): 50-54.
Vizenor, Gerald, ed. Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literatures. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.