The word interdisciplinary seems to have been invented just for Michael Dorris: his writing embraces both fiction and nonfiction, the themes are personal and political, and his concerns are for the in...
Read more
In his fiction, scholarly and popular nonfiction, and poetry Michael Dorris repeatedly returns to a few major themes: the centrality of family relationships, the renarrating of American history from N...
Read more
[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 aw...
Read more
[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 atten...
Read more
[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 n...
Read more
[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...
Read more
[In the following excerpt of an essay devoted to Louise Erdrich's writings, Owens examines how Native American identity is constructed in Dorris's A Yellow Raft in Blue Water.]
Despit...
Read more
[In the following review, Guthrie asserts that "the alarming statistics and consequences of fetal alcohol syndrome are skillfully interwoven with the human story of one of its victims in The Br...
Read more
[In the following excerpt, Lomas reviews The Broken Cord.]
Dorris's craving for fatherhood is so intense that he overcomes all obstacles to become the first single man in America to be grant...
Read more
[In the excerpt below, Milne reviews The Broken Cord and notes that Dorris "sees drinking as pre-natal child abuse."]
When Michael Dorris adopted an enchanting three-year-old Sioux ch...
Read more
[In the following review, McDermott considers the family values extolled in Morning Girl.]
Christopher Columbus is a mere postscript in Morning Girl, a lovely novel by the author of A Yellow Raft i...
Read more
[In the review below, Hansen addresses aspects of the "ordinary" represented in Working Men.]
Fiction writers have a natural fascination with ordinary jobs. Holed up alone in our offi...
Read more
[Below, Ferraro applauds the characterization, narration, and attention to detail he observes in A Yellow Raft in Blue Water and Working Men.]
Michael Dorris's first novel, A Yellow Raft in ...
Read more
[Below, Perkins offers a favorable assessment of Guests, noting that Dorris "weaves important moral themes—identity, responsibility, generosity—into his tale."]
In his s...
Read more
[In the following review, Lyons observes "the breath and richness of contemporary American culture" in Working Men and Paper Trail.]
In the current diminished relationship of literatu...
Read more
[In the following review of Cloud Chamber, Houston concentrates on Dorris's storytelling technique.]
Michael Dorris' new novel, Cloud Chamber, confirms everything I suspected after re...
Read more
[In the review of Cloud Chamber below, Scofield comments on Dorris's vision of community.]
Readers who remember the quiet power of Michael Dorris' novel, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, ...
Read more
[In the following mixed review, Bradfield finds that Cloud Chamber "succeeds as a haunting reflection of Michael Dorris's humanitarian concerns; but as a compelling story about believabl...
Read more