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I appreciate the compliment that what occurred in my career is exceptional, but in truth it's not. Every artist knows that at some point the gift he has will eventually be made manifest. He will, at some point, see the work he has done improve the lives of others around him. But I think every artist also realizes that time will go away from him, too. Success is a fickle companion. And even though those 13 years in the middle of my career were hard ones, I learned an invaluable lesson. If you seek success for its own sake, you'll probably never have any.

In The Moon of the Red Ponies, you bring out the plight of Native Americans in Johnny American Horse. Who is he, and what was the inspiration for him?

Johnny American Horse is half Salish, or Flathead Indian, and half Oglala Sioux, or Lakota Sioux. He's a descendant of Crazy Horse who was a medicine or holy man as well as a great warrior. But Johnny's a veteran of the First Gulf War, Desert Storm, and appears to have Gulf War Syndrome. Some people think he's simply a drunk. But he has visions and he wants to see the earth restored by the "everywhere spirit." He wants to see the bison roam free on the plains. He's an idealist, he's messianic. In some ways he is a public fool, but he's true to his vision and he's a man of enormous courage.

It's obvious in the book he becomes a Christ figure who's to be eventually crucified by all the forces that he brings down upon his head. He's a totally honest and brave and decent man, but he's one of those people who doesn't fit, particularly when it comes to corporate interests that, in Montana, have their eye on some natural gas and oil sites.

You're able to address an abstract theme through a character who typifies that theme. Yet you don't sit down and decide you need a Christ-like figure here or there. How do you explore something through a character without making that character a simple representation or an allegory of a theme?

I believe the characters live in the unconscious, and I've never quite understood where they come from. They have some kind of correspondent in the external world or in past experience, but they take on identities of their own. Let me quote better men than I. William Faulkner, right before his death said, "Had I not written these books, another hand would have written them for me. And these hills will find breath for me." In other words, he was just the vessel, the agency, of something larger than himself. Ernest Hemingway said when he completed the last page of Old Man in the Sea, he read the whole manuscript back through in one sitting. And this is an exact quote. He said, "It was as though someone else had written it." I think every great artist says the same thing. It came from somewhere else. The story is already there. Michelangelo put it far better than I could ever. He said, "He did not carve the sculpture, he liberated it from the stone."

When you think about your own depth as a writer, what were some of the defining moments in your life experiences that brought maturity to your writing?

I think every human being has a half-dozen experiences in his life that will shape who that person becomes. They're usually experiences that are seldom shared. But I believe that the capability of telling an epic story lies inside every human being. The story of Ulysses and Agamemnon and Menelaus, of Jesus, of the Good Knight of Chaucer, lives in every one of us.

It's a Jungian notion, but I think all of us have to contend with two concepts. One has to do with power. Anyone who gets into psychoanalysis is going to hear that word lots of times because that's what it's about. That's what human society has always been about, the acquisition of power, its use, and misuse. The second word is trust. Trust and intimacy are inextricably linked to one another. Those qualities or virtues or vices all were defined at certain moments in our life. And with the child it has to do with affirmation that gave him a sense of trust about the world or betrayal that made the world his enemy.

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June (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48