The Ancient Child

"In ancient times, when the Kiowas roamed free across a "land of innumerable long distances," the Indians first told the story of the boy who turned into a bear. Now, in his first novel since the Pulitzer prize-winning House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday shapes the Kiowas' age-old tale into a timeless American myth. The Ancient Child juxtaposes Indian lore and Wild West legend in a hypnotic, often lyrical contemporary novel in which time is seamless, imagination unbounded. Locke Setman, called Set, a Native American raised far from the reservations by his adoptive father, is an accomplished painter, but he cannot quiet the strange aching he feels in his soul. Returning to the land of his ancestors for the funeral of a grandmother, Set is drawn irresistibly to the fabled bear-boy whose story absorbs him. Then Set meets Grey, a stunning young medicine woman with visions beyond telling, and his world is turned upside down. The Ancient Child is a brilliant re-creation of American Indian dreaming in the landscape of the American West. Momaday brings together the primordial vision quest and the immediacy of the modern world with breathtaking effect. Here is a magical, wholly unforgettable saga of one man's tormented search for his identity--a quintessentially American novel, and a great one."--Publisher's description.