Palestina Summer

“Robert J. Conley’s “Wil Usdi”
Child of the Eastern Cherokees
by CHARLES R. LARSON
Luther Wilson’s introduction to Wil Usdi states that “If there were such a position as Official Cherokee Historian, Robert J. Conley would be the logical choice to hold that position.” Before Conley’s death last year, he had published The Cherokee Nation: A History, a twelve volume cycle of novels about the Cherokees, as well as “several fictionalized biographies of key individuals important to Cherokee history.” Wil Usdi falls into the latter category—a biography of William Holland Thomas (1805-1893)—narrated as if it were a novel, mostly from Thomas’s point-of view.”