Redon Corn, Charles H. 1936–

(Charles Harold Red Corn)

PERSONAL: Born 1936; married; wife's name Jeri. Education: Pennsylvania State University, master's degree.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Dr., Norman, OK 73069.

CAREER: Writer. Worked as a business consultant and as director of educational and development projects in Indian Country and the Oklahoma Indian Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Tribal Scholars Program fellow, Dartmouth University Native American Studies Program; Rockefeller Foundation fellow in the humanities, 2003–04.

WRITINGS:

A Pipe for February: A Novel, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, OK), 2002.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel based on lawsuits that seek to recover billions in royalties and other funds owed to Native Americans.

SIDELIGHTS: Charles H. Red Corn is a member of the Osage Tribe and spent many years working in Indian affairs before turning his hand to novel writing. In his debut, A Pipe for February: A Novel, Red Corn draws from a series of 1920s true-life murders that took place among the Osage Indians. In his historical detective novel, Red Corn describes the tribe's success due to the discovery of oil on their lands, and tribal members soon find themselves living in both the traditional Indian world and the modern world of big money and all its materialistic accoutrements. Things couldn't be better, or so it seems until tribal members start dying as a result of "accidents." Several of those who perished in car mishaps and other events were relatives or friends of John Grayeagle, who begins to suspect that their deaths may be another assault stemming from the white world's greed. In a review in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Florence Shinkle noted, "The title of the novel refers to the ancient wisdom, the special pipe, a man needs to negotiate the trickiness of February when things are not as they seem." A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the novel "thematically rich." Robert L. Berne, writing in World Literature Today, commented that the novel "somehow seems more vivid and true than historical accounts of the 'Osage Reign of Terror.'" Berne went on to write that the "combination of traditional tribal awareness and modern materialism is the most remarkable element in Red Corn's novel, and he presents it in all its complexity—past and future, traditional and modern, honorable warfare on behalf of the people and modern legal manipulation."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2002, review of A Pipe for February: A Novel, p. 1264.

Publishers Weekly, November 4, 2002, review of A Pipe for February, p. 62.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 24, 2004, Florence Shinkle, review of A Pipe for February.

World Literature Today, July-September, 2003, Robert L. Berner, review of A Pipe for February, p. 151.

ONLINE

Dartmouth College Web site, http://www.dartmouth.edu/ (November 8, 2004), Peter Walsh, "Red Corn Is First Tribal Fellows Scholar."