Book Review: “The Ancient Child”

Let me start this off with a pop quiz:

What do Native American legends, a curse, and a woman who has strange fantasies about Billy The Kid have in common?

If your answer is “How should I know?”, you’re absolutely right.  Of course, I didn’t know either of these things were going to be in The Ancient Child by N. Scott Momaday.

The main thing that threw me off about this book was the awkwardness of its storytelling. Some of its chapters were only one page, while others were on topics that had nothing to do with the story.

Remember when I mentioned the woman with those Billy The Kid fantasies? That takes up a number of chapters, as do three chapters about the main protagonist Set talking about how he seduced three women – again, what on earth it has to do with the story?  To make matters worse, the plot itself finally comes back into focus near the end of the book.  It’s almost as if the author had a solid idea, suddenly decided to branch off into a completely different one, then remembered to return back to the story at hand.

From the amount of reasearch I have done, it seems that many people who have read the book have loved it.  Perhaps there is something I’m missing, but if there is a message of any sort, I for one don’t see it.  This is no insult to those who are fans of the author, but I simply can’t find anything to like about The Ancient Child.