Michael Dorris

Michael Anthony Dorris (January 30, 1945 – April 10, 1997) was an American novelist and scholar who was the first Chair of the Native American Studies program at Dartmouth. His works include the memoir, The Broken Cord (1989) and the novel, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987). He was married to author Louise Erdrich, and the two frequently collaborated in their writing. He committed suicide in 1997 while police were investigating allegations that he had abused his daughters. The Broken Cord, which won the 1989 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction, helped provoke Congress to approve legislation to warn of the dangers of drinking alcohol during pregnancy. 2Biography Michael Dorris was born in Louisville, Kentucky to Mary Besy (nee Burkhardt) and Jim Dorris. His father died before Dorris was born (reportedly by suicide during WWII), and Dorris was raised as an only child by his mother, who became a secretary for the Democratic Party. It has been reported that two maternal relatives also helped raise him, either two aunts, or an aunt and his maternal grandmother. In his youth, he spent summers with his father's relatives on reservations in Montana and Washington State. In an article published in New York magazine two months after Dorris' death, a reporter quoted the Modoc tribal historian as saying, "Dorris was probably the descendant of a white man named Dorris whom records show befriended the Modocs on the West Coast just before and after the Modoc War of 187