ABSTRACT
If a date can be ascribed to the advent of new Native American fiction, it would be February 14, 1936, for on that day D’Arcy McNickle (Metis; 1904-1977) saw the publication of his first novel. For years, editors had praised, and rejected, his drafts, thus forcing the young man through agonizing revisions as he sought to make his work true to the tribal themes he wished to convey, but also marketable. In the former regard, The Surrounded was a marvelous success; in the latter, it was a dismal failure. Critics praised it, but the book did not sell. When it was released again, in 1977, The Surrounded found the audience for which it was suited. In the intervening forty years, the reading public had changed; it was ready for a novel that did not espouse either of two extremes: the Noble Savage or the Indian on the brink of extinction. As the recent popularity of McNickle’s works attests, he was forty years ahead of his time, for the resolutions he found to the dilemma of publication and veracity are echoed today.
