Recipients of L.A. Times Book Prizes Announced

Janet Lewis, author of “The Wife of Martin Guerre” and four other novels--as well as poetry, short stories, books for children and opera librettos--won the Robert Kirsch Award for Body of Work as the 1985 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced Friday.

Winner of the history award was Evan S. Connell for his “Son of the Morning Star,” the story of Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s defeat at the Little Bighorn and the Plains Indian Wars.

The current interest prize was presented to Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven M. Tipton for their “Habits of the Heart,” a look at the American character in the 1980s.

The biography winner was Michael Scammell for “Solzhenitsyn,” a study of the famed Russian dissident author.

The fiction prize went to Louise Erdrich for “Love Medicine,” a novel tracing the intertwined lives of the Kashpaws and Lamartines on and around a North Dakota Indian reservation from 1934 to 1984. It is the first novel for Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and the author of poems and short stories.

The poetry award was given to X. J. Kennedy for his book, “Cross Ties,” the poems of three decades.

The awards were presented Friday evening during a reception and dinner hosted by Tom Johnson, publisher and chief executive officer of The Times, and William F. Thomas, editor and executive vice president.

Each recipient was presented a $1,000 cash award and a copy of the winning book in handmade leather binding.

The award winners were chosen from five nominees in each category. More than 60 reviewers from The Times Book Review section participated. One anonymous judge in each category selected the prize-winning book from the top five vote-getters. Neither nominators nor judges are members of the newspaper’s regular staff.

Interest in Indian Pueblos

Lewis, who attended high school in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park with Ernest Hemingway, spent five years in New Mexico recuperating from tuberculosis during the early 1920s. While there, she became interested in Indian pueblos and subsequently wrote poems about them.

Her first novel, “The Invasion,” published in 1932, dealt with the moving of white settlers into the old Northwest Territory. Her other novels include “Against a Darkening Sky” (1943), “The Trial of Soren Qvist” (1947) and “The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron” (1959).

She was married to poet-critic Yvor Winters, a professor of English at Stanford University, who died in 1968.