Indian Time: A Year of Discovery with the Native Americans of the Southwest

"~I was very entertained by this book. It gave me insight into a race of people that I have lived around and had an interest in most of my life. It has given me hope that someday when I return to New Mexico that I could experience getting to know these loving, giving and wonderful people. that they express, but then I am not a Native American Indian.

I loved Judith Fein's "Indian Time." Ms. Fein has written a wonderful,honest, moving book that invites the reader to join this neurotic Jewish screenwriter as she ventures into the lives of Native Americans in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I would most highly recommend it for any non-Indian who wishes to experience what it might be like to venture into this very private and spiritual world.To her credit, Ms. Fein gives herself the "warts-and-all" treatment, painting herself as a multi-phobic who comes from Hollywood to Santa Fe in order to write about a subject she knows nothing about: the pueblos. Page after page, she admits her ignorance of what must seem basic to any Native American (e.g., the painful irony of Indians not being able to afford electricity when the electric company is actually using their land for free). But gradually she absorbs Native American ways -- their unity with nature and each other -- until they become HER way.This is also a fun road trip with Ms. Fein and her husband as they jump into their car at a moment's notice and race from hills to valleys to private homes to attend gatherings as honored guests...hunt for petroglyphs (which she describes in respectful, loving detail)... and participate in rituals which usually bar non-Indians or forbid picture taking.The book culminates in a breathtaking fiesta arranged by Fein herself (through a serendipitous series of adventures) between a willing group of Spanish and Native Americans who meet to exchange cultures and apologize for the history of hatred between them.But the real climax is when Fein herself and her steadfast (hilarious) companion of a husband, Paul, have to confront their former "cement and deal making" lives in L.A. and whether they can bear to leave Santa Fe after all they have learned from its people. We hold our breath with them and pray that they make the right decision.

I came upon this page by accident at was so taken aback by the combination of loving tribute and scathing attack this book has garnered that I had to see it first hand. Fortunately a copy was available, and I found the book to be quite insightful, thoughtful, and a seemingly honest portrayal of a woman's journey to understanding a different culture in HER EYES and coming from HER EXPERIENCES and HISTORY. I could see how this book might offend some in the culture that she explored, as one might condemn anyone who might expose the less-than-pretty underbelly of an otherwise beautiful experience. In this book, Judith Fein describes both, but from my view it seemed to be far more loving, appreciative, if not in awe of what these people and their ways taught her. I learned about a people, some of whom have a much simpler life. Indeed in some cases and in the eyes of people more typical of the recognized middle class and above in this country, they might be living in what many of us like Ms. Fein might view as even "abject poverty". Yet many of these mystical people have a nirvana that most of us can only begin to understand an relate to through the eyes (and seemingly appreciative ones at that) of the author of this book who approaches it from a place completely outside the culture. I may not fully understand the anger this book has provoked, but am grateful that it led me to read this book.

These "adventures" of this phobic, anxiety-ridden, Jewish woman and her husband (who is constantly making the best of some of the strangest situations his wife and he get into). Even moreso the changes that begin to occur in her life as she begins an exploration and infact learns to embrace much of the culture of the Native Americans of the Southwest, and how it ultimately leads her to understand her own Jewish culture through it. Constantly ranging from hilarious to touching. A special read for wom