In the Bear’s House

You are the dark shape I find On nights of the spilling moon, Pale in the pool of heaven. You are spirit, you are that Which summons me and confirms My passage. You know my name---from "Revenant"

Since receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his novel House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday has had one of the most remarkable careers in twentieth-century American letters. Here he passionately explores themes of loneliness, sacredness, and aggression through his depiction of Bear, the animal that has both inspired and haunted him all his life. With transcendent dignity and gentleness, In the Bear's House celebrates Momaday's extraordinary creative vision and evolution as one of our most gifted artists.

"Let me say at the outset that this book is not about Bear (he would be spoken of in the singular and masculine, capitalized and without an article), or it is only incidentally about him. I am less interested in defining the being of Bear than in trying to understand something about the spirit of wilderness, of which Bear is a very particular expression... Bear is a template of the wilderness."---from the Introduction

"The bold brushstrokes of Momaday's paintings echo the power and precision of his poerty and prose."---Kirkus Reviews