Larry Stillman's Blog

August 14 marks a special day for the surviving Navajo code talkers, whose number has diminished to less than 60. It was designated by President Ronald Regan as the national day of recognition for this illustrious group.

The day will be celebrated with festivities, as it has been since 1982, by the Navajo Code Talkers Association and the Department of Navajo Veteran Affairs.

Again this year, more than 200 members of the Young Marines will travel to Window Rock, Arizona, tribal capital of the Navajo Nation. Their theme, after all, is �Teaching Today�s Youth about Yesterday�s Heroes.� They will also act as escorts for the participating veterans over the three-day celebration.

The Young Marines is a non-profit youth education and service for boys and girls age 8 through high school. What a wonderful opportunity for these young citizens to meet genuine World War II heroes!

The three-day celebration in Window Rock will commence on August 13, but the big parade and ceremony will be on the 14th. Each day will bring the opportunity to meet and greet the men who created and used the only code the enemy could not break.

I regret that I can�t be there due to other obligations, for it would be an honor to meet face-to-face some of the men who inscribed their names on a copy of my book, �The Rope Catcher,� and returned it to me. It is something I will treasure always.

But you can bet I�ll raise a glass to the Navajo code talkers and be with them in spirit.

Hope you will, too. We must never forget their dedication and sacrifice.

There are many approaches to writing an historical novel.

Some, like the Australian writer Kate Grenville in her extraordinary novel �The Lieutenant,� take real people from other times and placers, then reconstruct or re-imagine their history as it could have actually happened.

Others, like Alan Furst in his novels of espionage during WWII, or Larry McMurtry in many of his novels set in the old West, create entirely fictional characters to help readers evoke a period of history as if they�d gone back in a time machine.

Then there are those authors who combine both factual and fictional characters. �Ragtime,� by E. L. Doctorow, is a famous example. The fictional protagonist, Coalhouse Walker, is joined by real people such as Harry Houdini, Stanley White, Diamond Jim Brady, and others.

One of my favorite quotes, in fact, reportedly comes from Doctorow when a woman asked him if all those people in his novel actually knew one another. His answer? �They do now.�

Which brings me to my historical novel, �The Rope Catcher.� My protagonist, Jimmie Goodluck, is fictional...a composite, in part, of several real code talkers. But three central characters (and a number of other marginal characters) to his story did exist: Chee Dodge, visionary headman of the Navajo Nation in the 1930s and 40s; his daughter, Annie Wauneka, who (among other contributions) brought modern standards of healthcare to the reservation; and Evans Carlson, whose Raiders were among the very first to embrace the secret Navajo code.

While I am using these individuals fictitiously, I believe I have a responsibility to render them as fully and as honestly as I can. Which is to say, they think and speak and behave in my work of fiction as they did�or would have�in real life. Their inclusion helps me to convey an accurate sense of the history of this period.

That�s the beauty of historical fiction when it�s done right. It can make history come alive as often non-fiction texts fail to do. It can transport the reader to another time and place without distorting the reality of that time and place.

That is the kind of novel I love to read, and that is what guided my writing of �The Rope Catcher.� If, as you read it, you can�t always be sure which characters are real and which are fictional, well then, I�ve done my job well.

And if you find yourself wondering whether all the characters who interact in my book really did know one another, I�ll stick by Doctorow�s answer.

They do now.

It was nearly five months after Pearl Harbor when the first call went out from the U.S. Marine Corps: We�re looking for a few good men, it said. Men fluent in both English and Navajo.

Many Navajo boys applied. But only 29 made the first cut. In my historical novel, The Rope Catcher, there�s a scene in which those Navajo marine recruits are sworn in moments before boarding a bus in Ft. Wingate, AZ. Here they are, the real individuals, in this photo from the National Archives.

Their destination was the Marine Recruit Depot in San Diego. For most of them, it meant leaving the reservation for the first time in their lives. They would not return home for four difficult, war-torn years.

Little did they know, as they boarded that bus, what their contribution to the war effort would be. How could they even imagine the plans Uncle Sam had for them?

They would, after several weeks of basic training, sit in a room and create the only secret code the enemy could never break. They�d come to be known as code talkers, creating and implementing a military code using their native language. How they did this has never been told in detail, and has never before been dramatized, until The Rope Catcher.

Months later, these young men would be off to the South Pacific, using the code first on Guadalcanal, then with even greater frequency in subsequent campaigns. They would be joined, over time, by many other young Navajo men, all trained stateside in the code devised by these original 29 pioneers.

As I write this on Memorial Day, I give thanks to these courageous code talkers, and to the other Indian men and women who fought in all branches of the military in WWII and all ensuing wars. And, of course, I embrace our servicemen of all backgrounds, past, present, and future.

Thank you for serving your country. I�m proud to be your fellow American.

When I began my research for �The Rope Catcher,� I made the first of several visits to Dinetah, or Land of the People, as the Navajos call their reservation land.

I visited firsthand all the locations I knew would be important in my novel, from Kayenta in north central Arizona, to Gallup and Two Grey Hills in western New Mexico.

Some places will forever stand out in my mind. Monument Valley is a very spiritual place (not just to the Navajos but also to any receptive visitor) with its dramatic sandstone formations and blazing colors that change with the movement of the sun.

A close second is Canyon de Chelly, with its cliff dwellings and serpentine trails, where Kit Carson and his troops massacred countless Navajos in a shameful period of American history. In nearby Chinle, the breathtaking campus of Dineh College sits like a desert oasis of knowledge and enlightenment. That, too, is something not to be missed.

Then there is Window Rock, along Arizona�s eastern border, the seat of government for the Navajo Nation. Here sits the Navajo Tribal Headquarters and council chambers, just steps away from the natural rock formation from which the small community takes its name. Overnight visitors are welcomed at the Navajo Nation Inn, an unpretentious but comfortable motel with a decent restaurant and accommodating service. The neighboring Navajo Museum and Visitors Center is also well worth seeing. I was last there around ten years ago when it was still very much a work in progress.

Since my last visit to the area, another site has been developed at the base of the red sandstone window rock formation: the Navajo Tribal Park and Veterans Memorial, designed to honor the many Navajos who served in the U.S. military. The idea evolved from a collaboration of Navajo Viet Nam veterans, Navajo code talkers, and Navajo medicine men.

The park is designed in the shape of a medicine wheel. Visitors can walk the circular path outlining the four cardinal directions. On the east side of the park are 16 angled steel pillars with the names of war veterans. The statue pictured here represents a code talker, perhaps best known of the Navajo soldiers who fought in every modern U.S. war.

I hope to go back to Window Rock soon to walk the circular path myself, where I, too, will honor the Navajo Americans who selflessly fought for their country. The same country, incidentally, that all too often looked the other way when it should have fought for them.

In a recent newspaper interview, I said that, for me, the hardest part of writing is getting the story � or some form of the story � down on paper the first time.

The fun part of writing lies in the rewriting. And man, do I rewrite.

Dozens of times, whole novel rewrites. Often hundreds of times, individual sentences and paragraphs. Find a better phrase. A better adjective. Reduce the passive voice. Add a description of place. Revise that description. Then revise it again.

It never ends until the manuscript finally goes to the printer. Meanwhile, where have the last eight years gone?

That�s how it is for me. I�d like to turn out books on a much faster timetable, and perhaps some day I will. But give up the incalculable rewrites? Never.

I could spend half a day searching for just the right replacement for a lazy adverb or a clich�-ridden adjective. Does that mean you won�t ever find a few of those in my writing? Of course not. Just trust me, in earlier drafts, there were far more of them.

Change third person to first person? I�ve done that, and vice-versa. Move the middle of a draft to become the opening of a subsequent draft? Done that too. Spend a week, a month, perfecting the opening line? Worth every minute.

Maybe it goes back to my copywriting background. I considered myself a wordsmith, because there are generally very few words in print or television ads, and every one must work hard to convey precisely what you want it to convey. I use the same approach in my books that run more than 100,000 words. Perhaps I don�t succeed with every sentence, but its not for lack of trying.

So here�s the thing. They say the best reason to have kids is to get to the grandchildren, and that�s how I feel bout writing, too.

The best thing about writing a first draft is to get to the second and third and, more often than not, twentieth draft. That�s where the writer earns whatever royalties and positive reviews might come his or her way. That�s where the magic happens. That�s where the fun is.

And sometimes, that�s where you end up with a different book than the one you originally thought you were writing.

Surprise!

OK, not behind it, actually. In front of it: the cover itself.

Lots of people ask me about that cover. Where the photo came from and how I chose it.

Answer�s pretty simple. Because the title is a metaphor that becomes apparent only when you read the book, I needed a visual that

As I sit here in the Southwest, where I spend several weeks each winter, I soak up the Indian cultures the same way I soak up the abundant sunshine. (Yes, �Indian� is the correct word. �Native American� is no longer politically correct).

Here the neighboring tribes are Pima and Tohono Odam. Soon I will

If you go to Window Rock, on the eastern border of Arizona, you will find yourself in the capital of the Navajo Nation. The Tribal Council meets here in a rustic building of red sandstone that was built (in 1936) in the shape of a large hogan, the traditional octagonal Navajo dwelling. The building was

It depends on the novel, of course. But if it�s a good, carefully crafted novel, the answer is: All of it.

Which is not to say, everything written actually happened. It�s commonly understood that �a novel� means fiction.

But the way I see it, even the fiction has to be true to the period in which the story takes place. That means metaphors and similes appropriate to the time. Dialog that reflects the period (can you imagine an 1800s teenager saying, �OMG, that�s, like, so gross!�). And characters that act and behave as they might have (if they�re real people used fictitiously) or would have (if they�re completely made up).

As a result, serious writers of historical fiction tend to be sticklers for research. They obsess over every historical detail: the clothing, the setting, the props, the moods and attitudes. Because one glaring mistake�an electric light where there should be a kerosene lantern, a breakfast cereal that hasn�t been invented yet�can spoil the kool-aid the reader has willingly swallowed to transport them to the novel�s time and place. (And by the way, Kool-aid was around as early as 1931).

For my novel, �The Rope Catcher,� I spent many hundreds of hours in libraries where I researched Navajo history and customs, along with various WWII-related subjects. I spent time (and money) visiting the reservation, talking to code talkers and Navajo historians, seeing the places I wanted to write about. (I did not, however, go to Iwo Jima or Saipan or Guadalcanal. Not on my bucket list).

For me, research is part of the fun of writing. (The most fun, though, is rewriting. I�ll save that discussion for another post). Whoever said �write what you know� doesn�t know me. I love to write about things I don�t know but want to learn. That�s what keeps me going.

And here�s the other thing: My novel includes some very real, very important people in their day. I felt an obligation to be true to them in every way, in spirit if not always in the things they say and do in my story. Even my protagonist, fictional as he may be, is a composite, in many ways, of actual individuals. So I felt an obligation to him, too.

Suffice it to say, historical fiction at its best is history. It may use some fictional characters and situations, but it offers a glimpse through the looking glass into a period long gone. More than a glimpse, actually. It can transport you there.

And isn�t that why you read it in the first place?

Simple answer is, nobody I know can answer that. Even the Navajo code talkers themselves don’t know.

Fact is, they were not called code talkers when they used their secret Navajo code during WWII. And they were not called code talkers in the years immediately following the war, for their contribution remained top secret.

As you’ll read in “The Rope Catcher,” they were simply called radiomen. They received standard signal corps training, and then went on to construct and memorize the unbreakable code they devised using the Navajo language.

Their code was transmitted and then decoded by a Navajo marine on each end, replacing the slow, cumbersome, and often inaccurate code machines. So it’s no wonder some platoon members referred to them as “walking code.”

But code talkers? Not until sometime after 1968, when the code was declassified. And “wind talkers,” like the ludicrous movie of the same name? Never.

Meanwhile, the surviving Navajo men who created the code are proud to be called code talkers. It is one of those names that fits perfectly, as if it had been there right from the start.

If you have an idea as to who first coined the term “code talker,” I’d like to hear it.

Wish I could say it was me.