SOURCE: "Splendor in the Grasslands," in The New York Times Book Review, December 31, 1989, p. 14.

In the following mixed review, Marston faults Momaday's romanticized view of Native history in The Ancient Child.

Locke Setman, or Set, has achieved almost everything a person can in late 20th-century America and, of course, is suffering heavily for it. He is the central character in The Ancient Child, N. Scott Momaday's first novel since he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for House Made of Dawn.

Set is a San Francisco artist who has continued to paint large, colorful and pricey canvases, even though his inner vision has tried to pull him in less lucrative artistic directions. By conventional standards, Set has been well rewarded for this submersion of self. The fortysomething artist has a home and studio on San Francisco Bay, is moderately famous and has a relationship with a beautiful art collector...