Images by Elaine Querry
“In 100 years, someone will open The Death of Bernadette Lefthand and still be consumed by the wisdom, the different cultural beliefs between tribes, and struck that love and jealousy are the poles from which evil comes. In my top five favorite reads.”
—Jo-Ann Mapson, author of Blue Rodeo, The Wilder Sister, and Solomon’s Oak
Bernadette is one of those rare books that leave you stunned, wondering what hit you. Because it’s the story of a crime—the brutal murder of a beautiful Navajo powwow dancer—as well as a tale of clashing cultures, of systematic evil, of personal tragedy, it comprises several layers of narration.
“What?” you say. Yes, there are five point-of-view characters, plus an unnamed speaker who steps in with background commentary. This should not work. It breaks all the rules for fiction writing, rules that are pounded into every aspiring fiction writer. Yet somehow, it does work in Bernadette. Which goes to show, a writer who’s truly consumed by their subject can break the rules and get away with it.
When asked how he pulled it off as a first novel, author Ron Querry shrugs (figuratively) and says, in effect, he doesn’t have a clue. He just sat down and wrote it, following his gut.
Winner of the 1993 Border Regional Library Association Southwest Book Award and the 1994 Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association Regional Book Award, Bernadette was reissued in a 25th Anniversary Edition in 2018 by Cinco Puntos Press, El Paso. It’s been published in French, German, and Bulgarian as well.
Ron Querry, a member of the Choctaw Nation, has been living in New Mexico off and on his entire life. As a child he spent summers at his grandparents’ home in Montezuma. After a stint in the Marine Corps, he earned several degrees, eventually getting his PhD at UNM. He’s taught in academia and since 2006 has lived in Las Vegas with his wife, Elaine, a photographer. He’s also the author of the 1998 thriller Bad Medicine.
Here’s our recent interview:
Ramona: Bernadette is written in multiple voices: Gracie and Starr (first person), with additional shorter sections in close personal third person or omniscient point-of-view (Tom George, Bernadette, Emmett Take Horse, and an unnamed narrator). Using multiple points of view is challenging even for very experienced writers, yet you accomplished it in a first novel. Did you have an overall vision of how the different voices would cohere in a plot?
Ron: I had no plan at all for the novel. It was my first ever attempt at such a thing and I simply began writing and I found I was telling the story from the point of view of a young Indian girl—Gracie Lefthand. Gracie is telling us about that terrible day when the tribal police came to her house to tell her father that her older sister, Bernadette, had been killed.
It was only when there came a point in Gracie’s narrative that I realized that I needed to let the reader know something that Gracie would not have known, would not have been able to articulate, that I understood I needed to introduce a second narrator . . . a second voice to tell us what Gracie (16 years old) would not know or would not have the appropriate voice with which to tell.
And this happened again when I discovered that I needed someone else’s point of view, or someone else who would know what others did/could not. I was always surprised at what direction things would go.
I should tell you that if in reading the book you find yourself surprised by some turn, you can be pretty certain that I was surprised as well. I appreciate you saying that this use of multiple narrators or points of view is challenging and that you feel I accomplished it.
My late author friend Chuck Bowden told me once that he was given Bernadette and that he really didn’t favor fiction but that he kept after it because he didn’t think I could possibly maintain a young girl’s voice throughout. I was pleased that he thought I did so.
Ramona: The personas/voices of Gracie and Starr, the former model who employs Bernadette, come across quite convincingly. Do you have a knack for getting inside the heads of your characters?
Ron: I prefer to think that Gracie and Starr got into my head. In any case, because I imagined these characters, I suppose it would be fair to say they are me. I can tell you that I knew the sounds of their voices and what they were thinking at all times. Funny, but what they looked like . . . not so much. Only later would I see someone and think, “That could be Gracie,” or Bernadette, etc. Because I had a real individual in mind for Starr, I always had a picture of her in my head.
Ramona: The voice of Gracie, Bernadette’s grieving younger sister, is especially poignant and consistent throughout. Her description of Bernadette’s last powwow dance is heart-breaking, since she and the reader know already that Bernadette will die. Was this scene hard to write?
Ron: I don’t know . . . I’m sure it must’ve been hard. I know it broke my heart. And when Elaine came home from work that evening and I read to her what I’d written—as was my habit—she wept. And the fact she did so made me think I’d gotten it right.
Ramona: One of the most striking aspects of the novel is how deftly you portray the Navajo and Apache cultures. Do you think the fact that you are Choctaw gave you any insights into the Navajo or Apache culture? Or perhaps an ability to perceive aspects of Navajo or Apache culture that white people aren’t likely to notice?
Ron: The fact that I am Choctaw probably didn’t afford me any particular insight into Navajo or Apache lifeways, other than possibly an awareness that these different tribes or nations are as different as any other nations are or can be from one another.
I’m probably more like Starr is in that respect—that is, I have read and studied the extant materials having to do with the people about whom I write. I have tried very hard to make sure that I don’t make silly mistakes—some readers will always write and point out errors. Or what they perceive to be an error, anyway.
Ramona: You say in your Afterword that you assumed the book would find an audience, but it wouldn’t be Indian, especially not Navajo. Who are the readers of Bernadette? How it has been received over the years in the Navajo community? I’m thinking of a similar example: the mysteries of Tony Hillerman have been popular among Navajo readers. He also wrote about Navajo spiritual beliefs.
Ron: Over the twenty-five-plus years that Bernadette has been available, it has enjoyed popular appeal with all kinds of readers. Navajo and Jicarilla Apache readers, especially, have expressed to me admiration and enjoyment. My comment that I didn’t expect a Navajo audience was based on the fact that the book has to do with witchcraft and other aspects of Navajo lifeways that I anticipated would not appeal to traditional Navajo people. Indeed, I’ve had younger Navajo people tell me that their parents might not be comfortable with the book. I don’t really know.
Ramona: The cover photo of the second edition is perfect. Kudos to Elaine Querry!
Ron Querry: I love that image and the design of the cover. The image is one Elaine took at Taos Pueblo 30-some years ago. She calls it “Dream of Bernadette.”
Ramona: Is Bernadette available in bookstores?
Ron: The book is distributed in those mysterious ways that books get to booksellers. I have nothing to do with that. Of course, Amazon is a huge bookseller, but I’ve seen the book in bookstores and gift shops. I’m always happy to see it, as you can imagine.
Ramona: What about the book’s reception (both editions) has pleased you? What has displeased you?
Ron: I am pleased with the book’s reception in all its various editions in every way. If I’m displeased by anything, it would be the lack of promotion and distribution that I reckon every author feels. I confess that I have a hard time with self-promotion, and that’s clearly not a good thing for writers and other artists.