In The Names: A Memoir, N. Scott Momaday has written an important and beautiful book. Like The Way to Rainy Mountain, it is autobiography, but whereas the earlier book is a spiritual journey only to his Indian past, The Names is more comprehensive covering both his Indian and White ancestry. The Names is also more objective, especially in the early part of the book. (p. 178)

Momaday gives us facts about his ancestry on his mother's side, which is mostly non-Indian, and his father's, which is Kiowa and the principal catalyst of his imagination. To him these facts are interesting and necessary to recall but only when shaped by the imagination. Both reality and art are acts of the imagination…. The Names is a work of art in which Momaday constructs his past to bring discipline and order to those memories which have made him the man and artist...