Sundown [Paperback]

John Joseph Mathews (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1988

Challenge Windzer, the mixed-blood protagonist of this compelling autobiographical novel, was born at the beginning of the twentieth century "when the god of the great Osages was still dominate over the wild prairie and the blackjack hills" of northeast Oklahoma Territory. Named by his father to be "a challenge to the disinheritors of his people," Windzer finds it hard to fulfill his destiny, despite oil money, a university education, and the opportunities presented by the Great War and the roaring twenties. Critics have praised Sundown generously, both as a literary work and a vignette into the Native American past.

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Joseph Mathews, who died in 1979, was one of Oklahoma's genuinely gifted writers. He was the author of Wah' Kon-Tah: The Osage and the White Man's Road, a poetic description in prose of the spiritual life of the Indian, and a Book-of the-Month Club selection in 1932. His other books include Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E. W. Marland (1951), about the controversial governor of Oklahoma and the founder of the company �that later became known as Conoco, and The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (1961), a narrative history of his tribe. Talking to the Moon was first published in 1945 and is reissued with a foreword by Elizabeth Mathews, his widow. Mathews was the great-grandson of Old Bill Williams, a noted frontiersman, and was a mixed-blood Osage. For many years he served as a member of the Osage Tribal Council. Educated at the University of Oklahoma in geology and at Merton College, Oxford, where he took his degree in natural sciences, Mathews was a fine American blend of scientist and poet, philosopher and producer, historian and storyteller, Indian and white.

Product Details

• Paperback: 329 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (September 15, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806121602
• ISBN-13: 978-0806121604
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #110,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A mixed-blood Osage Indian trying to grow up in both worlds., December 10, 1998

By 

David Jarvis ([e-mail]) (Pawhuska, OK (by way of Appleton, WI)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sundown (Paperback)

In this book, the fictional protagonist essentially describes the authors life, according to his daughter who wrote the introduction. Struggling to be successful in the white man's world, a mixed-blood Osage Indian is really only comfortable back home on the reservation. Never feeling at home in either, he often feels isolated in both. The book follows him from boyhood on the reservation to college and military life beyond, but always returning home.

This book is an absorbing read, and is notable for being one of the first books to examine this topic intelligently. It is devoid of romanticism or New Age allusions (illusions?), but is not the inevitable sinking despair of a James Welch read. I strongly recommend it for anyone with an interest in mixed-culture and heritage topics.

John Joseph Mathew was probably the most influential Osage Indian writer yet born. A World War I Army Air Corps pilot, he was Oxford educated as a geologist, travelled the world, especially Africa, yet came back to the Osage hills in Oklahoma to be "home". He was not a "full-blood" Osage, but was a "mixed-blood" of Osage and Caucasian heritage.

In his era, it was this mixed heritage that probably allowed him to be as educated as he was. This was invaluable in his later writing career, because his books are both poetic in style and writing, capturing much of the feel of our Osage oral history and home, yet scholarly in their documentation. He wrote the first best-seller by a Native American author (Wah-Kon-Tah: the Osage and the White-Man's Road)published in 1932. Following this, he wrote a history of our tribe, (The Osages, Children of the Middle Waters) which while controversial in some aspects, is the most complete written history we have yet. He also wrote on topics of naturalism and his personal views on many topics, and a biography of an oilman, both of more or less relation to the tribe.

But in none of these books to we get a real flavor of how he *felt* about things, and the experiences that molded him. In this book, Sundown, we see an intimate personal, often painful look at a younger Mathews. This, along with Mathews' prose syle is why I recommend the book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, January 23, 2012

By 

Stephanie N - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sundown (Paperback)

This book arrived early and in excellent condition; it looked like I bought it brand new at a bookstore! I also found it an interesting read, very different from most of the novels I have read!