The Dance Hall of the Dead and the October Hat

 The knitting is the October Hat by Sloane Rosenthal. 

The novel is Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman.

Every now and then, I try out cables.  I started this project in October because of the pattern name and I finished this up earlier in the week.  I only messed up a few times, which really makes me feel like I'm making progress on my cable work.  I like the pattern, and I think I like how this looks in the nice and neutral Oatmeal colorway of Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool.  

I'll probably make this again sometime in a softer yarn.  The charts were great, but I wish I had separated the sections with stitch markers just because I get super flustered working cables.  This is a good addition to the gift stash, though! 

In Dance Hall of the Dead, Joe Leaphorn is called out to search for 2 missing boys.  One is thought to be dead.  George, a Navajo, wants to be Zuni and Ernesto, a Zuni, is something like a friend to him.

There's a hippie commune that set up shop in a death hogan, and it might be a cover to a drug smuggling operation.  And there's a girl named Susie at the commune who is in a relationship with a grad student named Ted conducting a dig to confirm an archeologist's (Chester Reynolds) theory about the Folsom man.  He's a Neolithic man named Folsom.  Also, Reynolds had a theory and other archeologists laughed at him and he was very determined to prove some kind of something about the Folsom man and his flint pieces.  Susie and the boys have both been warned away from the site by Reynolds.  

Ted lives in anger and desperation, placing the professional success and the hope of financial security over Susie who has run away from her family, who must be so terrible that living on an unsuccessful commune is preferable. George is lonely.  His father is an alcoholic, and he and his brother don't have a larger support network. 

Ernesto's body is discovered, and that's sad but we don't hear much about it.  There's a lot of talk about the Zuni people, but not much about Ernesto and George.  In fact, they're normally referred to by their last names.  That's a normal way to read about people in a newspaper article, but these are children.  It was weird to me!  You know what else is weird?  Joe's wife, Emma, and how we never hear about her.    

Emma calls the station to leave a message to remind Leaphorn of a dentist appointment when he's away from home for several days.  That's it.  If this were the only novel you read, this is all you would know about the person Leaphorn is closest to in the entire world.  And you would only know that he is close to his wife because the narrator tells you.  Contrast with Joe being angry with Ted for not helping Susie, and placing his hopes and fears over her safety.  Maybe we don't get a lot of sentences (or any) about what Joe thinks of Emma because he's not worried about her?  It's just weird.  

Here, have another hat photo.

 

There are sightings of a creature in some kind of costume that's not a ceremonial costume, and is a disguise that amounts to sacrilege.  

They find Ernesto's body.  Leaphorn finds George about 5 minutes too late.  George's father is murdered. We're introduced to FBI agent O'Malley.  We're sort of introduced to Agent Baker, who works in narcotics and might be investigating something to do with the planes flying near the commune because there's a maybe a big drug ring. When Reynolds goes missing, Leaphorn sort of walks away.  

Truly.  Leaphorn is called in to look for one missing Navajo child on a case on Zuni land.  Every time he uncovers new clues, he finds more sad things about broken families and lost children and drug-addicted hippies.  FBI agents are angling for career advancement.  Archeologists are ruled by ego and grad students are too focused on themselves. And the possibly drug-dealing hippies are running drugs.  Someone cares enough about one of these things to murder three people. There's a lot happening and by the end of the story, I definitely relate to Leaphorn feeling disgusted by a lot of the characters.  The story was amazing, but some of the people in it are absolutely terrible. 

Leaphorn literally drives away from it all, not seeking to find out about the drug investigation, laying everything at Ted's feet, and searching for Susie on the highway in case she needs a ride and $10.  It's the best he can do and he knows it.

Other details:

At page 105, Leaphorn hurries.

The dance hall of the dead is a place to celebrate (like Heaven) for Zunis.