From Publishers Weekly
A collection of 22 powerful short stories by Spokane Indian writer Alexie. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This work chronicles modern life on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Victor, through whose eyes we view the community, is strongly aware of Native American traditions but wonders whether his ancestors view today's Indians--mired in alcohol, violence, and an almost palpable sense of despair--with sympathy or disgust. In spite of the bleakness of reservation life, the text brims with humor and passion as it juxtaposes ancient customs with such contemporary artifacts as electric guitars and diet Pepsi. The author of two previous poetry collections, Alexie writes with grit and lyricism that perfectly capture the absurdity of a proud, dignified people living in the squalor, struggling to survive in a society they disdain. Highly recommended for all fiction collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/93.- Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation, Curwensville, Pa.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
With wrenching pain and wry humor, the talented Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian--and previously a small-press author (The Business of Fancydancing, a collection of poetry and prose-- not reviewed--etc.)--presents contemporary life on the Spokane Indian Reservation through 22 linked stories. Here, people treat each other (and life) with amused tolerance--although anger can easily erupt in this environment of endemic alcoholism and despair. The history of defeat is ever- present; every attempt to hold onto cultural tradition aches with poignancy: Thomas-Builds-the-Fire is the storyteller everyone mocks and no one listens to; Aunt Nezzy, who sews a traditional full- length beaded dress that turns out to be too heavy to wear, believes that the woman ``who can carry the weight of this dress on her back...will save us all.'' Meanwhile, young men dream of escape--going to college, being a basketball star--but failure seems preordained. These tales, though sad and at times plain- spokenly didactic, are often lyrically beautiful and almost always very funny. Chapters focus on and are narrated by several different characters, but voices and perspectives often become somewhat indistinguishable--confusing until you stop worrying about who is speaking and choose to listen to the voice of the book itself and enter into its particular sensibility. Irony, grim humor, and forgiveness help characters transcend pain, anger and loss while the same qualities make it possible to read Alexie's fiction without succumbing to hopelessness. Forgiveness seems to be the last moral/ethical value left standing: the ability both to judge and to love gives the book its searing yet affectionate honesty. (First printing of 25,000; First serial rights to Esquire and Story) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

--New York Times Book Review
"These spare, disturbing stories trace with stark, lyric power the experience of American Indians in the modern world."


"Stunning and compelling. Alexie is a visionary and by far the best writer I've seen published in recent years."


"A compelling and impressive collection."


"Alexie blends an almost despairing social realism with jolting flashes of visionary fantasy and a quirky sense of gallows humor."

Book Description
In this darkly comic short story collection, Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation. These twenty-two interlinked tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issue cheese, and yet are filled with passion and affection, myth and dream. There is Victor, who as a nine-year-old crawled between his unconscious parents hoping that the alcohol seeping through their skins might help him sleep, Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who tells his stories long after people stop listening, and Jimmy Many Horses, dying of cancer, who writes letters on stationary that reads "From the Death Bed of Jimmy Many Horses III," even though he actually writes then on his kitchen table. Against a backdrop of alcohol, car accidents, laughter, and basketball, Alexie depicts the distances between Indians and whites, reservation Indians and urban Indians, men and women, and mostly poetically between modern Indians and the traditions of the past.

About the Author
Sherman Alexie is the author of the novels Reservation Blues and Indian Killer and three collections of poetry. He also wrotethe screeplay for the movie Smoke Signals. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A highly acclaimed collection of short stories by a young Native American writer hailed by the New York Times as "one of the major lyric voices of our time."...Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, brilliantly weaves characters, themes, and language as he evokes the complex density of life in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation, an existence filled with pain, anger, and bitterness but also, more importantly, with forgiveness and resilient hope.... Alexie writes with affection, grace, and, most of all, passion. He is a modern mythmaker, with a razor-sharp eye for the ironies of modern Indian life, recording the estrangement between Indians and the rest of the world, while affirming the continuing power of his tribe's cultural history and language.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times Book Review

These spare, disturbing stories trace with stark, lyric power the experience of American Indians in the modern world.

Bloomsbury Review

Alexie blends an almost despairing social realism with jolting flashes of visionary fantasy and a quirky sense of gallows humor.

Washington Times

A compelling and impressive collection.

Chicago Tribune

Poetic [and] unremittingly honest...The Long Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is for the American Indian what Richard Wright's Native Son was for the black American in 1940.

New York Times Book Review