Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/1997/10/22/the_decline_and_fall_of_professor_dorris.php
Wednesday, October 22, 1997
On the evening of April 10th, Dartmouth Professor Michael Dorris, nationally recognized Native American Studies guru, checked into the Brick Tower Inn in Concord, New Hampshire under the assumed name of George Fonta. He entered his hotel room, placed a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the outside doorknob, and then blocked the door using two chairs.
As Dorris laid down on the bed, he swallowed some sleeping pills, washed down with a glass of vodka. Dorris then fixed a plastic bag over his head and died from asphyxiation. Dorris's body was found the next day by New Hampshire police.
As soon as the suicide hit the presses, New York magazine revealed that it had already been planning an extensive feature on his personal life.
The New York piece, written by Eric Konigsberg, was to focus on allegations of sexual abuse raised by his adopted daughter, and supposedly substantiated by her brother, both Native American. The article, ultimately published on June 6, also contained allegations that Dorris had extramarital homosexual affairs, and that he was an alcoholic. The media's role in prompting Dorris' suicide bears further investigation.
According to David Streitfeld, a Washington Post writer who authored an extensive postmortem feature on Dorris, it was the news of the planned New York magazine story that led Dorris to end his life.
'[The planned story] was corrosive,' Streitfeld wrote on July 13. 'It said investigators had amassed evidence of 'very, very serious physcal and sexual abuse' of two of the daughters he had with [poet and wife Louise] Erdrich. It said he had repeatedly raped Madeline and that his adopted son Sava would hear her screams from the next room. It said Dorris fondled and physically abused Sava. It said he was an alcoholic, a control freak, a publicity hound, a hypocrite, a liar, a monster.
'It was a story remarkable in its denunciation, and it stands now as the closest thing to an official version of Dorris' life and death...[T]he story of Michael Dorris has acquired an acceptable plot line — he killed himself because he was about to be exposed as a pervert.'
Streitfeld continued, suggesting that it is plausible, even probable, that Dorris was innocent.
Streitfeld's thesis, which has, since its publication, become the definitive alternative to the New York account, holds that Dorris was so in love with his ex-wife, Louise Erdrich, that he killed himself to save her the trials of scandal.
The haunting final years of Dorris' life departed substantially from the fortunate times of his early career. After receiving a Masters Degree from Yale University, Dorris joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1972 at the young age of 25 with powerful academic backers, strong credentials, and a reputation for intellectual daring.
He quickly became the chair of the Native American Studies program and an instructor in anthropology. Dorris spent twelve years chairing Dartmouth's NAS program, and over the course of his tenure in Hanover became one of the nation's foremost authorities on Native American issues.
While at Dartmouth, Dorris was a leading proponent for the eradication of the Dartmouth Indian symbol, despite heated opposition from alumni. He also led a huge recruitment effort to attract Native-Americans students to Dartmouth in the early 1970's. Dartmouth received a series of national grants, including one from the Educational Foundation of America, to sponsor Dorris' work in the NAS program.
In 1981, Dorris married Louise Erdrich '76, one of his former students. Throughout the 1980's, the couple enjoyed terrific literary success — Erdrich as a poet and Dorris as a novelist and essayist. Dorris' first two novels both achieved critical acclaim and commercial success, winning him numerous prizes and landing on the New York Times bestseller list.
One literary lion called Dorris and Erdrich 'the foremost literary couple of the eighties.'
Dorris' life began to unravel in 1995 when he and Erdrich separated. Erdrich bought a house a few blocks from the family home in Minneapolis and moved in. She claimed that she needed space to work, but the actual motivations behind her separation from Dorris remain a mystery.
Dorris and Erdrich worked hard, however, to conceal their separation. Joint appearances at conferences were maintained, and Dorris and Erdrich publicly kept their emotions at bay.
Dorris' life took a further downturn in Minneapolis when he admitted himself to Hazelden's Center for alcohol treatment in December of 1995.
While Dorris was in treatment, Erdrich took the children to noted child psychologist Sandra Hewitt for interviews. Hewitt soon revealed that Dorris' children were claiming to be victims of a pattern of sexual abuse. Hewitt contacted the authorities, and charges were soon filed.Local authorities took up the investigation, and Dorris never saw his natural children again.
When questioned under oath, the children repeated their charges.
The credibility of the allegations has not gone unchallenged. Sava, in a letter to Dorris, accused Jack Stockley, not Dorris, of the sexual abuse.
Stockley was Dorris's house guest and homosexual lover prior to Dorris's 1981 marriage to Erdrich. In 1988, Stockley died of AIDS in San Francisco.
The Konigsberg story also reported damaging allegations, made by prominent members of the Indian intelligentsia, that Dorris was not, as he had long claimed, of Indian heritage. Dorris vehemently denied the allegations. Konigsberg also printed a quote from Native American essayist Greg Sarris criticizing Dorris for writing about tribes not his own, an approach widely condemned among Indian writers.
While the investigation into his daughter's allegations proceeded and attacks on his intellectual credibility mounted, Dorris continued to hold to his regular schedule of public appearances, and gave no visible appearance of depression.
He continued to work on his final novel, Cloud Chamber, and prepared to go on tour promoting the book last winter.
Dorris canceled his April 10th speech at Darmouth, commemorating the NAS program's 25th year of existence, and entered a Vermont hospital.
Although early reports suggested that he had been hospitalized for exhaustion , it now appeared that Dorris was getting psychiatric help.
He was now suicidal, and at the end of March this year, he attempted to commit suicide at his second home in New Hampshire.
His attempt was thwarted when a friend called the home, found out what happened, and alerted the authorities.
Dorris's death on April 10, did not end the rape allegations brought on by his children.
Madeline is now suing her adopted father's estate, reportedly worth over $2.2 million dollars.