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By now, critical responses to this novel have been both slight and pided. For example, Edward Hoagland describes this novel as Welch’s “most mature and readable book” (7) and William Hoagland observes that “the best of this very good book is its characterization” (256). Lemon Lee, however, argues in Prairie Schooner that in this novel “the problems of being even a successful Native American in our societyare as predictable and as unexciting as the action” (131) and Gary Davenport finds the characterization is stalled at the level of the “serious dramatic television series” (324).
Generally speaking, academic researches on The Indian Lawyer at home and aboard lag behind those of Welch’s other works.
According to my research in the CNKI.net, at home, only Liu Kedong’s “Agency in James Welch’s The Indian Lawyer” deals with this novel. Liu pays special attention to Sylvester’s ethnic agency. He thinks that Sylvester is a good representative of hybrid who seeks agency from both traditional and new cultures. He argues that Sylvester’s final decision to withdraw from Congress running campaign and to work for the reservation reaffirms his Blackfeet cultural identity.
According to my research in EBSCO.com, foreign studies on The Indian Lawyer are principally chapters or essays in collections and volumes. In 2000, Ron McFarland’s Understanding James Welch was published with a chapter entitled “Going One on One: The Indian Lawyer as Novel of Intrigue ” in it, which identifies and explicates the material, themes, use of language, point of view, structures, symbolism and responses to experience in The Indian Lawyer. Mary Jane Lupton includes a chapter “The Indian Lawyer” in James Welch: A Critical Companion. Just like Ron McFarland, she provides a thorough analysis of plot development, character development, themes, generic conventions, narrative point of view and symbols about this novel. Both of the two critics try to seek hidden implications in this novel. However, Ron McFarland pays more attention to the connections within Welch’s works while Mary Jane Lupton makes comparisons between Welch and other writers.
In addition to the volumes mentioned above, some critical essays have also touched on the layout of The Indian Lawyer. In “The End in James Welch’s Novels”, Ron McFarland turns his focus to how Welch ends his novels. He argues that Welch’s endings usually offer readers “open-and-shut cases--surprises, ambiguities and arguable resolutions” (319). He describes that The Indian Lawyer, similar to Welch’s other novels, begins with main characters feeling “cut off and cast adrift” (319), trying to seek identity, and ends with ambiguities. He suggests that Welch’s novels should be interpreted by their “last pages which often imply a mediator or agent” (319). Besides, he notes that more directness is shown at the end of this novel than Welch’s other works. David Seals studies the subject in The Indian Lawyer. He proposes that Indians are usually negatively portrayed in books and movies, as “anything other than savages or else winos” (648), which is too “grim and relentless” (648) for any Indian to read. He approbates Welch’s departure from this “Tragic School” (648) to depict a good, successful Indian man. But he considers the conclusion drawn by the end of Sylvester’s failure for not “making it big by going to Congress” (648) is strange as if Indians at the “low budget, grass-roots level” (648) can’t do much to their people.
Some critics study The Indian Lawyer from the perspectives of social science and psychology. Sidner J. Larson points out that the insider/outsider conflicts in the novel echo David Riesman’s ideas in The Lonely Crowd. He asserts that both Sylvester Yellow Calf and Jack Harwood in The Indian Lawyer are parts of “the Lonely Crowd” (495), experiencing identity crisis and insider/outsider conflicts due to their other-directness--“conformism or an exceptional sensitivity to the actions and wishes of others” (495), and refers to Sylvester’s dependence on women characters as a part of his other-directness. Larson praises this novel, pointing out that it adds more ways to comprehend Native cultures “beyond the usual rural and urban Native communities” (506). In “New Warrior, New West: History and Advocacy in James Welch’s The Indian Lawyer”, Robert F. Gish reinforces the utility of science-psychology analysis as well. He contends that The Indian Lawyer explores the “ecological and social concerns of a twentieth-century new west” (370), which not only furthers Native American rights and social party but also helps advance the evolution of the western novel as called for the portrayal of the issues and tensions of the twentieth-century. He argues that Sylvester Yellow Calf’s statues as a new warrior is hard won because of the “historical present that he is an Indian in a white dominant world” (371) and as a new warrior in a new west, he “courageously faces down his sudden fall and restores the economic, ecological, cultural, and spiritual balance and harmony” (374).