Re-Release: I Love New Mexico Authors: Anne Hillerman

Episode Transcript

Bunny: (00:10)
Hi there and welcome to the, I love New Mexico podcast. I’m bunny Terry and I’m joined by my co-host Johanna Medina and the ultra esteemed Anne Hillerman, who is one of our favorite authors, who is a New Mexico icon. I say, I wanna say treasure, but, I’m so excited that you agreed to join us, Anne, because you and your family have such an interesting New Mexico story and you introduce so many people even internationally to the culture in New Mexico. So thank you so much for agreeing to join us. Mm-hmm

Anne: (00:55)
Thank you. Well, thank you for the invitation. It’s lovely to have a chance to talk about my favorite state. So I really appreciate it.

Johanna: (01:04)
Yeah. We’re so excited to have you,

Bunny: (01:07)
So tell us for people, you know, there’s gotta be two or three people out there in the world who don’t know who you are. And so can you tell us your New Mexico story and how, how you came to this state and what what’s, what’s the story? What’s the Hillerman story?

Anne: (01:28)
Oh, sure. I would love to, well, I’m a, just by way of introduction, I’m an author. I write the, Jim Chee, Joe Leaphorn Manuelito mystery series. And this is a legacy series that my father started more than 50 years ago. And when I took it over, I elevated Bernadette Manuelito who, by the way, lives in Ship Rock, New Mexico, I elevated Bernie to a being a full-fledged crime solver. And she is the first native American woman in fiction to actually have a leading role like this. So I’m really proud of her. So I came to New Mexico as a child. My mom and dad had been living in Oklahoma and my father was working at that time for United press international. And they had an opening for the bureau chief slot in Santa Fe.

Anne: (02:23)
And they offered him that job. So he came and got right to work and found a place to live. And then my mom and I came, they were living in Oklahoma city. So my mom was charged with selling the house that they had. And then she and I came on the train and arrived in Lamy. And my dad sent a reporter or somebody who worked for him to pick us up. And I know my mom was always a little incensed that he didn’t come and pick us up himself.

Bunny: (02:51)

Anne: (02:53)
Anyway, that was how we got to Santa Fe. And so, I basically grew up here. I was in the, just about done with the eighth grade when my father got a job with the university of New Mexico in Albuquerque. So then we moved down there and I went to high school there and went to UNM, got a degree in journalism. And then, I mean, because as much as all of us love New Mexico, I think we know it’s kind of hard to find jobs here. And that was as true in the seventies as it is probably more true than it is today. But I was lucky through my journalism degree, I got a job as an intern, also working for United press international that my dad had worked for. And, uh, that was covering the legislative session in Santa Fe. And when that job was over amazingly, the editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican had seen my stories. And so then he offered me kind of a low level editing reporting job. And I, I also had a chance to go to Cheyenne, Wyoming, but it was February. And I looked at the weather forecast and it was like below zero, most days of the most days of that month, I thought, nah, I’m gonna stay in New Mexico. So yeah, I was really lucky. I was able then to work here basically the rest of my life. So, yay.

Bunny: (04:17)
That’s so cool. And how old were you when you came on the train to Lamy?

Anne: (04:23)
Three?

Bunny: (04:24)
Wow.

Anne: (04:25)
Wow. So I don’t, unfortunately I don’t remember it.

Bunny: (04:29)
, that’s so cool. I would love to hear, I mean, what do you, what, what do you remember best about Santa Fe and Albuquerque in those years?

Anne: (04:44)
Well, that was, you know, back in the 1950s and at that point, Santa Fe was a much smaller, sort of less, less glitzy town mm-hmm and a lot more, we, Anglo families were still very much in the minority there. One thing that helped our family get integrated in the community. Well, first of all, my dad’s job, because as first of all, reporting for UPI, and then he became a reporter and then editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican. So because of that job, I mean, he knew so many people from so many different walks of life in Santa Fe. And so that was, a real help in terms of our family feeling part of the community. And the other thing, our, my mom and dad both were from generations of German, Catholic families. So being Catholic in a community, particularly at that time, that was largely Catholic, really help them, you know, joining being part of a parish. And then they got involved with the choir and my mom was teaching catechism. So all of that, all of those connections kind of helped us be a real part of the community. I, we bought a house, um, off of Cerrillos road, off of Osage, which at that point was kind of the edge of Santa Fe. I mean, there was the Yucca drive in a little farther to the, to the south, but basically we were out on the boonies and I remember riding my bike from our house out to the Salvador Perez pool, which was like brand new at that time. Yeah, it was. And it, there were, you know, no big chain groceries, you know, just little sort of private grocery stores, I guess, like a lot of little towns back in the 1950s, you know, Santa Fe was kind of small and quaint.

Anne: (06:30)
I guess one thing that made it different was that you were just as likely to hear Spanish spoken in any environment as you were to hear English. There were, I mean, a lot of people for whom Spanish still was the first language and they were, you know more comfortable either speaking Spanish or speaking a combination of Spanish and English. And when we moved to Santa Fe the road to Albuquerque was still two lane. And I can remember it was a big trip to go down to Albuquerque and to go to the airport. Oh my goodness. That was like a day’s excursion. And anyway, it was totally different than now, but really still beautiful. I mean, the environment, I think the natural environment is despite Santa Fe’s growth that still has pretty much remained intact. And I mean, and then when we moved to Albuquerque, of course, Albuquerque was bigger, not as big, as it is now, but you know, a larger community, but having the background of the Sandia mountains and then on the, on the east and the volcanoes on the west and the city sort of down in the, in the Rio Grande valley, you know it was different than Santa Fe, but still really lovely.

Anne: (07:40)
So yeah, I feel just enormously blessed that I was able to grow up here. And I think the expansiveness of the landscape really is really a wonderful, wonderful gift. And particularly for creative people, I think just, you know, being able to get away from, from our computers or our easels, whatever kind of work we’re doing and just go out and look at this broader landscape really kind of helps us settle down and, and put things in perspective.

Johanna: (08:11)
Mm-hmm I wonder if you’re like, like Bunny’s husband who grew up here and walks around and says, oh, I remember when that was a gas station or that was the Macy’s or something

Anne: (08:23)
Yeah. When we would go downtown to the Plaza and there was a store called The Guarantee. And I had, unfortunately I got my mom’s feet, so I had to wear these special shoes. So, and the guarantee was the only place that had them. So we would go to the guarantee and have to buy shoes. And then there was Sears and Pennies and Zuck’s pharmacy, all of those store right on the Plaza. I mean, the Plaza really was at that point, the heart of commercial Santa Fe. And then when Devargas was built, I remember, oh no, this is gonna be the end of Santa Fe. Now we have a mall and my, but you know, some Montgomery awards was there. They thought, oh, no, this is just awful. But actually it worked out. Okay. Yeah. And it was nice when you needed something that what, that you couldn’t get in Santa Fe to not have to drag to Albuquerque, you know, I think we all appreciated that

Bunny: (09:17)
Mm-hmm Well, and he’s grew up also off of Osage over in Casa Allegre it sounds like maybe you were in a similar neighborhood and he said he would, you know, his parents would give him a dime and he would get on the city bus, which was like an old school bus. And just when he was 10 years old ride downtown and hang out on the Plaza.

Anne: (09:39)
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. it was kinda a far walk though, to get to that bus stop I know I was taking piano lessons and sometimes if the lessons came late, you know, mom would say, oh, just take, just take the bus home. Here’s a dime. And it was such an adventure, you know, living in. I’m sure kids who grew up in Chicago, they don’t think a thing of it, but Santa Fe was not used to public transportation. So, I mean, it felt like a really big deal to get on that bus

Bunny: (10:07)
. Yeah. So you and your dad Anne write, I mean, he started writing and you’ve carried on that, legacy, about an area of, of New Mexico that not a lot of people know about, but I’m curious about, I mean, why the Navajo Nation, why was that landscape that he chose and that you’ve stuck with? I’m curious about that.

Anne: (10:32)
Well, that’s, that’s a lovely question. Right? My dad first came to New Mexico, right after World War II mm-hmm and his introduction to New Mexico was, was that Western, uh, Northwestern part of New Mexico crown point Ship Rock. And I think that always stated his memory. So then after one of the reasons that our family moved to Albuquerque was because my dad had a job that would enable him ultimately to follow his dream of writing novels and moving from the, you know, 500 word newspaper pieces to a broader format and to be a, to tell stories on a larger level. And he had been introduced to the Navajo people, um, gosh, in his twenties back as a young man. So when he was thinking about starting his mystery series, he told himself, you know, I really don’t know how to write a mystery, but I’m pretty good at describing things. So if I have some beautiful scenery and some interesting detectives, maybe readers will put up with me while I learn how to plot and how to, you know, develop tension in stories and all of that good stuff. So I think that was part of what led him to set his stories in Western New Mexico on the Navajo reservation. His first story, the blessing way is set kind of in the Ship Rock, Gallup, Grants area. He doesn’t exactly say where it is, but just from reading the descriptions it looks like that scenery. And then his next story Dance Hall of the Dead was set at Zuni Pueblo, which is in Western New Mexico. So, yeah, New Mexico had a big, big influence on Dad’s work. And the fact that he assigned Jim Chee to the Ship Rock substation, then gave me when I was continuing the series, gave me a wonderful reason to explore that part of the state.

Johanna: (12:31)
Do you know if people from that area are like, or from the pueblos, like, do they know, I guess what I’m asking is… Is your dad well regarded in that area too? And by those people in that community, was he welcome there?

Anne: (12:46)
Yeah. He is for sure. They taught his books. In fact, in a lot of the Navajo schools, you know, at that time there just weren’t, I’m sure there were Navajo people who were writing, but they weren’t getting published as widely as my dad did. And the fact that in my dad’s books and in my books, the Navajo characters are the heroes. They’re the crime solvers. And very often people from mainstream society are the villains. And I think, for like junior high and high school teachers to teach books that not only were well written and maybe had some vocabulary that the students might not have known, but also that showed people like these Navajo students in very positive roles. I think all of that was what led to them not only teaching my dad’s books in schools, but really sort of accepting him, even though he was an outsider, accepting him as a person who was really telling their stories with integrity. And I have to, I know, Bunny sent me a little email asking me about the dark winds movies. And if you don’t mind, can we talk about that a little bit

Johanna: (13:52)
Yeah, definitely.

Anne: (13:55)
Well, that series for people who haven’t, who don’t watch TV or don’t know about AMC, that series debuted in June, and it was six episodes. And to put the series to put the scripts together, they had a cadre of native writers. So, and then they, they shot some of it in, on the Navajo nation itself, but a lot of it in a studio near camel rock that Tesuque Pueblo, is operating in the studio and then on adjacent land. And so it’s, I just, I love that series it’s, people who are very fanatic about having books that are exactly like movies say, well, you know, the Bernadette Manuelito character is tall and slim in the movies and in your book, she’s only five foot two, and she eats a lot of hamburgers. So, you know, maybe she’s maybe she doesn’t quite look like a model, but basically they used my dad’s stories and my stories as the inspiration for those movies. So they, I think they have the essence of the characters exactly. Right. And they do a wonderful, wonderful job of integrating the landscape into the setting and of really representing the Navajo culture with tremendous dignity. So I’m very, very pleased with the movies. And in fact, tomorrow they, which is, kind of toward the middle of August, they’ve invited me to sit in on one of their lunch sessions with the writers. And they wanna talk to me about how my dad saw the characters and how I see the characters. So when they’re developing season two and hopefully season three, they will have maybe a little more insight into, into how to write those folks. So, yeah, I’m excited.

Johanna: (15:38)
That’s so exciting.

Anne: (15:39)
Yeah. And I’m really so grateful that the movies are as good as they are the television series and that they’ve had such great response. It was the best received of all the new AMC series.

Bunny: (15:54)
Well, and here’s the cool, I think the coolest thing is that it was a couple of people here in Santa Fe, you know, a couple of our local celebrities got together. I mean, I’ve always thought, why aren’t the Hillerman novels, not on television? And so for George R.R Martin and Robert Redford to get together, so cool. And it’s so good. We were, we couldn’t wait for each new episode to drop. It was so well done. And, the actors are so good.

Anne: (16:25)
Thanks. I agree. I agree. I’ve really been delighted with it and they’re the whole cast is native, including some Navajos. So I think that really well, I shouldn’t say that the, the bad guy is not a Navajo I don’t wanna give away too much here, but yeah, anybody who’s read dad’s novels would not be surprised and they have a, a Mormon family in there, and they’re not Navajo either, but basically, oh, then they have a, a, uh, trading post guy. Who’s an African American. So, but yeah, I I’m really pleased and I’m, I’m excited that it got renewed for, for a second season. And I’m hoping that there will be more to come. Dad wrote 19 books and I just finished my eighth. So certainly they have plenty, plenty of good material to use for their stories.

Johanna: (17:13)
Mm-hmm yeah. It’s so great. Like you said, to have that representation in the books and then now on TV, um, and that they’re using actors that are true to the story representing those people. I love to see that , especially, in New Mexico, that’s, that’s our landscape as far as the land and the people.

Anne: (17:36)
Exactly. Right, exactly. Right. One thing I love about New Mexico is that it has such diversity of landscape of people, of history. I think, I mean, you know, when you look at all of those ratings where New Mexico comes in in the bottom, the bottom 50, they never seem to ask about, you know, how beautiful is the state and how, how does it nurture your spirit? You never see those questions, but I think if they were asking those questions, New Mexico would, would come in the top two. How, how rich is the history? You know, how, how deep do people’s roots grow and how much do we love the state?

Bunny: (18:17)
So I’m dying to hear about the eighth book that you’ve written I’m when, when is I’m I know you must have just finished, but when does that become when do we get to see that? And, what’s Bernie doing now?

Anne: (18:36)
Okay. Well, the title of it is The Way of the Bear. And it’s set at the partly, mostly, I would say at Bears Ears, national monument at a specifically a specific site that’s particularly beautiful called valley of the gods. And it it’ll be released, in 2023, April 25th. And I’m hoping that our wonderful collected works bookstore in Santa Fe will be willing to host me again for the book launch. And then there are also some lovely bookstores in Albuquerque that I’ve made friends with. One is a great little store called treasure house books on the old town Plaza in Albuquerque. Anyway, the story, now this is, this is where it’s tricky talking about mysteries, cuz I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna give away too much, but it concerns some illegal excavation in bears, ears and Bernie and she are there kind of to get away in, in the book that came out, uh, right before this, the sacred bridge, uh, they both had a tough time. And so Bernie is, is recuperating and in this book she has been promoted to Lieutenant. So one reason that they take this little trip is to sort of celebrate his, his good fortune. But of course, because it’s a mystery when they get there, things start to go awry and they end up dealing with a woman whose husband is found dead. And then next thing, you know, there’s a break in at a house where she is supposed to go to interview this guy, anyway, things start to unfold left and right. And then there’s a blizzard, but in the end all is well, so , I could say more, but I don’t think I will also, I’m still in the revision process. So, a few things that my editor and I are, are still working on the final version of this book. So some things may change, but I know it’s all gonna work out fine in the end.

Bunny: (20:41)
Well, I think we ought to talk about the Sacred Bridge too, because we talked about that in a prior podcast, but I’d love for people to that book is available right now and I’d love for people to find it. And if they haven’t met Bernie Manuelito and Jim Chee before what a great way to meet them and get acquainted with your books. Tell, tell our listeners a little bit about that one.

Anne: (21:09)
Well, the Sacred Bridge, the name comes from, Rainbow Bridge, which is a sacred site to almost all the indigenous people in the Southwest. And, uh, Jim Chee is, is there, his mentor, Joe Leaphorn has asked him if he can look for a cave that has a trove of sand paintings. So, Jim, you know, is he’s curious, he hasn’t ever been to Lake Powell. So he goes there and he, um, uh, is, is doing a little hike. And on that hike, he, after he’s been hiking, he thinks, well, I should, he hikes to, to rainbow bridge to say some prayers. And then he thinks, well, since I’m so close, I should go down to where I could have a good view of the water. And when he does that, he finds a body. Of course. So then that he kind of then moves from his spiritual quest to putting on his policeman hat. Meanwhile, Bernie is back in Ship Rock and she gets an assignment to do some research on an illegal cannabis operation or yet that is using anyway. There’s a lot of, a lot of suspicious things going, going on there. So Bernie, so that’s kind of the Bernie story and in the end poor, Bernie has a rough time of it, but in the end she figures out what’s going on. And, it ends with her going to her, her mother’s house, where there is a lot of, excitement, shall I say, going on, but in the end, Bernie and she solved the crime. And, in this, in this book, Bernie has applied to become a detective. And so that’s one of the, one of the threads that that’s running through it. And as she’s doing this, this job in Sacred Bridge, she has a chance to go undercover. And so it was, it was really fun to write about Bernie kind of being, instead of being the, on the beat cop, you know, being somebody else and learning other things. And I had great fun learning the history of, uh, lake Powell and the dam, and also learning about the whole marijuana business. Well, not the whole business, but what part of the business I needed to learn to, uh, put, put that in the, in the book too. So, and readers have responded to it very well. I’ve been delighted. It was, it debuted at number six on the New York times list. So yeah, I was really proud of Bernie and Jim telling such a good story.

Johanna: (23:38)
Nice. Congratulations. I remember you talking about, when Sacred Bridge was coming out, that you were writing it kind of in the middle of pandemic times, which of course not totally over, but you were talking about how you weren’t really able to travel as much and, and see the areas you were talking about for this new book coming out for, for number eight or the way of the bear. Were you able to like travel more and see more and experience more of what you were writing about?

Anne: (24:11)
Yes, yes, yes. Thank goodness. Yeah. I made two trips out there and I mean, I could still be there. There’s so much to see. I mean, that’s another really beautiful landscape. Luckily for me, it also is on the very Northern edge of the Navajo nation. So it wasn’t a real, fictional stretch to have my Navajo cops up there, up there at theirs ears. But yeah, I did the first trip, I did a, a wonderful tour with the Navajo guide who not only showed me some fabulous archeological sites, but also told me a lot of the, the Dine stories that have to do with that area. So I was really very grateful for that. It’s a beautiful spot. I would highly recommend it to anybody who has some, anybody who has some extra time to go up there and see for yourself.

Johanna: (24:59)
Wow. And you already have ideas and where to go for the next one? well, I

Anne: (25:06)
Dunno, I’m still, I’m still trying to, to stay focused on Corrections For this one, but yeah.

Johanna: (25:12)
Yeah.

Anne: (25:13)
Yeah. I mean, that’s just how my brain works. The next one I’d like to keep… Well, I don’t know. One idea I have is to bring them back a little closer to home, to have this set set on the reservation in New Mexico and Arizona, rather than taking ’em off, I guess you’d say off campus. I think that, I mean, they’ve done a lot of trips, but I think now they need to get back to work back to work on their home territory, but we’ll see, sometimes I have ideas and I start to write and they say, oh, no, we don’t wanna do this. So then I have to change.

Johanna: (25:43)
Yeah.

Bunny: (25:45)
Well, I think it’s important too, to talk, because we’ve been talking about landscape. I want you to tell our listeners about the book that you did, the Tony Hillman’s landscape book, because if somebody’s unfamiliar with that area, that book will introduce them to the incredible beauty of the four corners.

Anne: (26:02)
Because landscape was such an important part of, of my dad’s process. And because a lot of readers didn’t understand that he was writing about like 90% of the time writing about real places. I’d say the only time when he made up something was if something bad happened there. So my, my husband at the time decided that we should, uh, that it would be fun to do a book that included the real, the information about the real places that my dad had written about along with photos of those places. So we spent, oh, I don’t know, maybe two years traveling all along the Navajo nation. And even before that, I reread all of my dad’s novels because I wanted to, uh, capture those quotes where Jim Chee or Joe Leaphorn have to pull off the road because the sunset is so magnificent or because there’s a beautiful snowstorm that’s on the Chuka mountains, you know, whatever it was, those quotes were going to be part of the book. So anyway, we did all of, all of that work. And when I came up with the idea, I had really hoped that my dad would go with me, cuz I thought what a gift it would be to be in the car with him in this country that he loved and to hear him, you know, I’m sure it would’ve stirred up a lot of memories for him about things that had happened there, or people he’d met or maybe ideas for stories he’d he’d had that had never come to fruition. But when I mentioned it to my dad, he said, well, you know, honey, I think that’s a lot of driving and I really like my afternoon naps. So why don’t you and Don just go and take the pictures and then you can show ’em to me on the computer. So anyway, that was what we did. And at the time that I wrote that book, I really was not thinking that I would ever be writing fiction, but in retrospect, that book was really the perfect bridge for me because it, it was like a refresher course in the way my dad had constructed that series. And it also was such a wonderful introduction to many places on the Navajo nation I had never been. And it gave me a chance to meet a lot of wonderful Navajo people that I otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance to talk to. So I am, I just really feel so grateful that I had that ex that experience. And I really love that book. I mean, that book just became such a wonderful bridge for me from, from fiction to non-fiction. Oh, thanks buddy. but he’s just, was just holding it up so people can see it.

Bunny: (28:41)
Yeah, no, I just found my copy that you signed at the little reading that we did for the El Dorado public library, which was very cool, but um, we love this book. We’re gonna get on the road and go to all these places as well. So thank you for creating it.

Anne: (28:59)
Well, you should, a lot of people have said that to me, that they’ve kind of used that book as sort of their travel guide.

Bunny: (29:07)
So if you were, let’s talk about people who have never been here before. I mean, one of the questions we always wanna ask our guests is if somebody has never, ever been to New Mexico and they’re gonna come next week or in three months, what would you tell them not to miss?

Anne: (29:25)
Oh my gosh. You know, you gave me that question in advance and I have been thinking about it. That’s a really, really hard question. Some of it depends on how they’re getting here. I would say if a person is flying into Albuquerque and if they only have a very limited amount of time, I would say first, they ought to, well, they ought to go, to the bio park. I love the Botanic garden there. I think it’s such a wonderful introduction to kind of the, the natural, natural life of plants. I love plants. I love botany. So I would, recommend that, you know, sort of, if people don’t understand about desert plants, that gives you a really good biology 1 0 1 and then I would ride the tramway and I would go all the way to the top of crest and just savor that view that looks out, you know, over the, over the, Rio Grande valley, the volcanoes and the difference in elevation and how that affects the plant life. And then I would, I would come to Santa Fe and I would go to the museum of the history museum on the Plaza. I mean, spend a day on the Plaza, but for sure go to that museum because it kind of encapsulates so many important things about New Mexico. And then I think they need to eat for sure. And I would have green chile and blue corn enchiladas and a margarita and some of our wonderful local beer and maybe a glass of Gruet that wonderful, wonderful sparkling wine that, that is the grapes are grown in New Mexico. And then, I mean, then there’s so many other things to do. I mean, I love to, to walk around at, at tent rocks, which is between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

Johanna: (31:16)
Yes. You just wanna say thank you so much for being on the show and for great recommendations on things to read places, to go and check out whether you’re from here or not. If you’re visiting.

Anne: (31:32)
I’d like to give a shout out to New Mexico magazine too. I think anybody who’s considering visiting New Mexico, that’s really a wonderful resource. And also the city of Santa Fe and the Santa Fe visitors bureau, and also Albuquerque visitors bureau have great, great information on, on websites that can help people plan a trip or just help people learn more about the state, even if they’re not coming. If they’re just curious, like, you know, kids who have to do papers, I’d say, take a look at all those resources.

Johanna: (32:01)
Yeah. That’s a really, really great recommendation. And we’ll definitely, we’ll put links to the magazine. We’ll put links to sacred bridge and we’ll be on the lookout for your next book coming out in 2023. And it’s as always it’s, it’s so great to talk to you. Hopefully we’ll see you in person sometime soon.

Anne: (32:22)
Thank you. Well, thank you, Johanna. And thank you Bunny. It’s been a pleasure. Good, good luck with this series.

Johanna: (32:27)
Yes. Thank you.