His first novel, "Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart" (1978), later revised as "" (1990), brought him immediate attention. One of the few science fiction novels written by a Native American, it portrayed a procession of tribal pilgrims through a surreal, dystopian landscape of an America suffering an environmental apocalypse brought on by white greed for oil. Simultaneously postmodern and deeply traditional, inspired by N. Scott Momaday's pioneering works, Vizenor drew on poststructuralist theory and Anishinaabe trickster stories to portray a world in the grip of what he called "terminal creeds" – belief systems incapable of change. In one of the most noted and controversial passages, the character Belladonna Darwin Winter-Catcher proclaims that Natives are better and purer than whites. She is killed with poisoned cookies, purportedly for her promoting racial separatism.