What to Read Next: February 14, 2025
Issue #366, featuring a Navajo love story, some SNL reading, and more
Happy Friday and Happy Valentine’s Day if you’re celebrating this lovey dovey holiday. My wife and I have a tradition of pizza and beer, which started as a way to avoid over-priced, over-packed fancy restaurants. It’s pretty great. Wherever and however you’re celebrating, may you enjoy some time with your loved one(s)!
On tap this week:
A review of a surprisingly good early Pulitzer winner
Background reading for SNL’s 50th anniversary
An update on my long-term Pulitzer Project
5 Things: Links and Opinions
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Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story by Oliver La Farge
The early years of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction featured a lot of books that have zero name recognition in American culture. Take a look at my ranking of the first 11 winning titles:
Though there were a lot of great books published in the 1920s, they generally weren’t winning Pulitzers. Suffice it to say, I had pretty low expectations of Oliver La Farge’s Laughing Boy, which won 1930’s prize. I figured I’d be bored and/or offended throughout the story.
Instead, I was thrilled to discover that Laughing Boy actually turned out to be a very good book.
Set in the remote reaches of Southern Utah and Monument Valley — one of my favorite areas of the country — this story follows Laughing Boy and Slim Girl, an unexpected Navajo pair who fall in love and set out to make a life in an increasingly Americanized culture. As the subtitle declares, it really is a love story — with all the emotion and complexity that come with that label.
La Farge, an anthropologist by trade, did a number of things really well. He wrote beautifully about the landscape and about the messiness of a man’s relationship with an indigenous woman who’d been forced into an American school for her formative years. Most importantly, La Farge probed the interiority of these Navajo people with nuance, compassion, and deep honesty. Somewhat surprisingly, the book didn’t feel dated or rife with stereotypes — it was always readable and enjoyable.
Laughing Boy will especially interest folks who enjoy the likes of Edward Abbey and Louis L’Amour. So if you’re looking for a bit of an off-the-wall recommendation, this one fits the bill, and clocks in at just around 200 pages.