Bluff ran like a river through his schemes

How does it feel to be hustled, scammed, duped? Did you ever suspect he might be a fraud? What are you going to do about it?

Those questions have filled my days these past few weeks. The best way to answer them is to go back to the beginning, to the fall of 2000. That's when I first encountered the man I knew as the Navajo writer "Nasdijj" -- and whom I now understand to be a con man from Lansing, Mich., named Timothy Patrick Barrus.

Houghton Mifflin was publishing his debut "memoir," a collection of poetic essays detailing the writer's struggles as the son of a drunken Navajo woman and an abusive white cowboy. Its centerpiece, a heartbreaking account of his adopted Indian son who had died of fetal alcohol syndrome, had been published in the June 1999 issue of Esquire and named a finalist for a National Magazine Award.

His prose style, a graceful staccato that packed an aphoristic punch, was vivid and fresh. But -- and it hurts to say this now -- it was the book's searing honesty that set it apart. "Nasdijj" went to very dark places before bleeding on the page, though now it is clear he was shedding crocodile tears. "The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams" became a finalist for the PEN Award for best first nonfiction. I hailed it as a masterpiece.

"Nasdijj," who said he was from the Southwest, was living at that time in Chapel Hill. He was sick, he said, from years of poverty and struggle and had moved to the Triangle for our world-class medical facilities.

I was excited to have this talent in our midst. That he was a poor, traveled Native American didn't hurt his cause either.

I invited him to lunch. He was a slight man with a quiet voice who seemed as weathered as the character he played in his books. He didn't look like a Native American, but I attributed this to his white father. He was gracious and -- it seemed -- extremely forthcoming about his life and work.

As he picked at his food, he repeated many of the stories he had told the News & Observer reporter who had profiled him a year earlier. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't trusted him, hadn't repeated his claims in my column as fact. But I did. I saw no reason not to. Neither, it seemed, did anyone else.

The N&O and publications across the country gave warm reviews to his two subsequent memoirs. His second book, "The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping," won a prestigious PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2003.

I was delighted when this emerging star agreed to review books and write essays for the paper. Between March 18, 2001, and July 18, 2004, I ran 10 pieces by him, almost all of which referenced his Native American heritage. I received some praise and no complaints about them. I deeply regret publishing them.

Besides our lunch, we met one other time, at a bookstore, where he read an essay he had written for an N&O series that became the book "Remarkable Reads" (W.W. Norton). Otherwise, our interactions occurred mostly through e-mail. This is not unusual; most of my communications with reviewers are electronic.

Suspicion played no part in my decision to stop asking him to write for us. Instead it was a confluence of factors. His work had always required major editing -- 1,000-word assignments invariably came in at 2,500 -- but the results justified the effort. However, this process became more difficult sometime in 2003. Always elusive -- he was no fan of the telephone -- "Nasdijj" became harder to reach. E-mails went unanswered for long stretches because, he said, he was visiting remote locations for his work.

About this time, I began hearing horror stories from publishers, including W.W. Norton, to whom I had recommended "Nasdijj." Though he had always been cordial to me, word was that he was difficult and abusive. The rage that had simmered and shimmered just below the surface of his prose erupted in long and frequent Internet rants, in violently crude language, decrying the "racism" of publishing.