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Rating: 
Summary: Courageous Living and Writing
Review: "There are as many kinds of good writing as there are good writers," a friend once told me. Nasdijj's writing style, to be sure, is unusual, but he has proved that he's a good writer with his previous book. So what happened here? The temptation is to blame it on his editor, or lack thereof. A good editor would have told him that, first of all, about 100 pages need to be lopped off the work, that the clipped Hemmingway-type sentences and sentence fragments work in some cases, but they don't work here, that they sound contrived and phony. A good editor would have told the author not to go on and on, paragraph after paragraph, rhyming in narrative form."The same stinking motel beds of sadness flare with our eyes and bleed. To lean our weight against the curb. The father and son are drenched and heard. Or worse. The morning dogs await. The touch, the end, the kiss of fate. Sending us reeling over mountains to the sea. Stars back home break in ecstasy." It just gets worse and worse, meaning less and less. It sounds like the author thinks he's being paid by the word, so he dug up some of his old adolescent attempts at poetry (all dreadful) and tortured them into fitting the narrative of the memoir. They don't. A good editor, in other words, would have saved him from himself. It's especially disappointing because the Nasdijj has some important things to say and these devices distract and detract from the message, which is vital and urgent. One of Nasdijj's missions in life seems to be finding and loving hopeless cases, lost boys. In his first book, it was Tommy Nothing Fancy who had fetal alcohol syndrome; in this one, it's Awee, who is dying of AIDS. One of Nasdijj's "sons" who didn't die but has a hearing impediment calls him on this when Nasdijj shuts Crow Dog out of helping him care for Awee. "How am I going to know you through this?" he says. 'Now that there's a new one who will sort of take my place as your new lost cause. You DO do that. Don't tell me you don't. For once, just SHUT UP. It's done. Bring him over to my trailer and we'll play cards when you get over yourself, okay,' Crow said. Then he left." In this book, the author calls attention to the deplorable state of Western medicine that ignores the pain of children with AIDS, denying already dying kids the relief of pain medication under the rationale that they might become addicted, when it's the stress and trauma of that excruciating pain that is shortening their lives even more. There are no hilarious episodes such as the case of Onate's foot as in the previous book, but Nasdjii says some things here that you probably won't find anywhere else - things that need to be said. "There is no consistency to AIDS treatment in America. That is a fact. The only concrete thing these medical systems share is that you have to fight to get anything from them. The good ones and the bad ones. You fight to get in and get treated." Then, to get pain medication, you have to resort to illegal sources, or else watch these innocents writhe in agony. Nasdijj also draws attention to the way Uranium mines are killing Indian peoples with cancer. Church Rock, near Gallup, New Mexico is a case in point. "There is more yellowcake in this area than anywhere else on earth." "Some of the largest corporations in America simply declared brankruptcy in the early 1990s and walked away. If you're brankrupt, you're not liable for environmental damage, nor can you be sued. So they just packed up and left the reservation.
With the mess still there.
It is all still there." "The Russians have Chernobyl. We have Church Rock, but you've never heard about Church Rock or the radioactive accident that occurred there. An accidental spill released more radioactivity in the water table, and into the land, than was released at Three Mile Island.
It was a nonevent.
That is because to this day it is not considered to be NEWSWORTHY. They were only Indians.
It is, however, a matter of public record." Nasdijj is right. I didn't know about this until I read it here and I live fewer than 30 miles away from the site of the spill. Nasdijj has a heart bigger than all these wretched circumstances and enough love to wake up the world. If his editor hadn't been sleeping, *The Boy and the Dog are Sleeping* would have been one long howl as it was, I think, meant to be, without the detracting whine. But with all its faults, this memoir is well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Of the love of life & fathers & sons
Review: Beautiful, eager to love & all of 11-years-old, Awee, implores & eventually simply arrives in Nasdijj's life on a South Western Navajo reservation, carrying all he owns in a brown paper bag, along with a legacy of abuse & an imminently terminal case of AIDS. The wounded man takes in the dying boy, & sets about giving him what he most wants...a home, a father & a good life before he dies. For those who have read Nasdijj's first memoir THE BLOOD RUNS LIKE A RIVER THROUGH MY DREAMS, you know well his unflinching, entrancing poetry. His writing is like listening to a frame drum offering prayers & pleas in powerful staccato beats of rage, rolls of dread, & pulses of passion. THE BOY AND THE DOG ARE SLEEPING will change your life. Your heart will crack open & your spirit wll be infused with a grandeur as he tells the stories of the dying child he grew to dearly love & of a boy who loved him unconditionally as only sons can love fathers...& life. Riveting, extra-ordinary & profoundly moving!
Rating:
Summary: American health system fails native Americans
Review: Native American author Nasdijj delivers an unforgettable memoir with The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping, a chronicle of the death of his adopted son, a 12-year-old Navajo born with AIDS. Nasdijj, whose first son, also adopted, died of fetal alcohol syndrome, is persuaded to adopt Awee by the boy's parents, also AIDS patients. Against his better judgment, Nasdijj agrees. Taking on hopeless boys is something of an addiction with him, he admits. "I want the mad ones," Nasdijj writes. "The children who have had everything taken away from them. The children who are broken and mad enough to attempt to repair themselves. The children mad enough to spit and fight." Nasdijj makes some unorthodox decisions about how Awee should spend his last weeks of life, choices he suspects minivan moms would not approve of. Instead of hunkering down in a hospital or hospice, with pill bottles and intravenous drip close at hand, Nasdijj takes his son on a motorcycle to the coast, lets him play baseball, lets him spend the day in an auto repair shop and introduces him to several Indian rites of passage. Along the way, Nasdijj exposes the failure of America's health care system to provide relief for indigent AIDS patients, especially those on Indian reservations, where welfare hospitals may take as long as six weeks to return blood test results. Awee is frequently in and out of the hospital-with pneumonia, with terrible pain from nerve damage, with sarcoma. The most scathing criticism Nasdijj offers is the health care industry's failure to relieve a 12-year-old's pain. Here, Nasdijj runs up against a medical brick wall. Pain medications for children with AIDS haven't been developed, he writes, and doctors are unwilling to experiment. Despite the prevailing darkness and forgone conclusion of The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping, the book has wonderful moments of humor, whimsy and warmth. But the narrative's most important accomplishment may very well be its biting commentary on the neglect of AIDS patients in a complacent society that mistakenly believes the monster has been leashed.
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Summary: The boy and the dog are sleeping
Review: The book was touching and amazing to me. He is very poetic and so open and willing to write how he feels and what he is thinking. He writes things that most people would never dream to admit that is what they even thought about. Its wonderful. He is so real I love it. I have recommended this book to my friends and they love it as well. I was craving more when I was done with it. It was sensational. I read his other one as well and its just as good. This man is amazing. I would love to thank him for the insights he gave me and the way I was able to have his book help me in my life. I hope many more people can benifit from this mans writing as well. Nasdijj I say bravo to you, and Thank you.
Rating:
Summary: The boy and the dog are sleeping
Review: The book was touching and amazing to me. He is very poetic and so open and willing to write how he feels and what he is thinking. He writes things that most people would never dream to admit that is what they even thought about. Its wonderful. He is so real I love it. I have recommended this book to my friends and they love it as well. I was craving more when I was done with it. It was sensational. I read his other one as well and its just as good. This man is amazing. I would love to thank him for the insights he gave me and the way I was able to have his book help me in my life. I hope many more people can benifit from this mans writing as well. Nasdijj I say bravo to you, and Thank you.
Rating:
Summary: Compassionate and poetic read
Review: The hardships and rewards of love between a parent and child are explored in depth in Nasdijj's writing. This is a poignant work well worth the read.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling
Review: This is a very moving and compelling piece of work. It certainly isn't orthodox, either in it's content or it's style. It is disturbing and thought provoking. And while you certainly will not agree with all the methods Nasdijj employs - I actually cringed when I read about Awee having a sexual experiance with the mechanic - in the end you have to empathize with his motives. He was placed in an impossible situation, one that had no road map, no directions, no guareentees, and he did what he thought was right. Nasdijj has an unforgettable writing style that is all his own. And while it would seem ridiculous, even juvinile, anywhere else, it works so very well with the stories Nasdijj has to tell. I only gave it 4 stars, however, because, in my opinion, it just doesn't have the same impact that Nasdijj's first book did. When I read "The Blood Runs Like a River.." I actually wept like a child. I told everybody I knew about the book. I sent copies to friends. This book, "The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping", just doesn't have the same emotional thrust. "The Blood Runs Like a River..." had the feel and spontaneity of reading someone's diary. That's why it was so...real. You felt it all the way down to your bones and you knew it was true and untainted and from the heart. "The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping" has a more, dare I say, commercial feel to it. You don't feel like you've peeked into someone's journal...you feel like you're reading a carefully constructed book, written for distribution. Don't misunderstand me - this book is a great work and certainly worthy of your attention. But I think fans of "The Blood Runs Like a River..." are going to recognize the lack of spontaneity and miss that feeling of innocence that made us fall in love with Nasdijj in the first place.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling
Review: This is a very moving and compelling piece of work. It certainly isn't orthodox, either in it's content or it's style. It is disturbing and thought provoking. And while you certainly will not agree with all the methods Nasdijj employs - I actually cringed when I read about Awee having a sexual experiance with the mechanic - in the end you have to empathize with his motives. He was placed in an impossible situation, one that had no road map, no directions, no guareentees, and he did what he thought was right. Nasdijj has an unforgettable writing style that is all his own. And while it would seem ridiculous, even juvinile, anywhere else, it works so very well with the stories Nasdijj has to tell. I only gave it 4 stars, however, because, in my opinion, it just doesn't have the same impact that Nasdijj's first book did. When I read "The Blood Runs Like a River.." I actually wept like a child. I told everybody I knew about the book. I sent copies to friends. This book, "The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping", just doesn't have the same emotional thrust. "The Blood Runs Like a River..." had the feel and spontaneity of reading someone's diary. That's why it was so...real. You felt it all the way down to your bones and you knew it was true and untainted and from the heart. "The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping" has a more, dare I say, commercial feel to it. You don't feel like you've peeked into someone's journal...you feel like you're reading a carefully constructed book, written for distribution. Don't misunderstand me - this book is a great work and certainly worthy of your attention. But I think fans of "The Blood Runs Like a River..." are going to recognize the lack of spontaneity and miss that feeling of innocence that made us fall in love with Nasdijj in the first place.
Rating:
Summary: A haunting love story
Review: This is an angry book with lovely lyrical writing. The book makes you fall in love with this complicated little boy and his angry father.
Rating:
Summary: an amazing story of giving
Review: Wildly Enthusiastic Recommendation: The boy and the dog are sleeping by Nasdijj
I had to tear myself away from Awee, the little boy in this amazing memoir, to get out the door to run this morning. This book has absolutely gripped my essence. A story of love between a man and boy - not any man and boy. An 11-year old with AIDS and the dad he adopted - the daddy who is fabulously in love with the child, the child who has learned to love with all his being a father who is not his naturally, but has become his wholly, spiritually. No father could give and take more. That's the spirit of this relationship - giving and taking from each other. It seems to me Nasdijj gets the better portion of the giving. That's how Awee is. It's a very tough read. AIDS is not pretty, and Nasdijj tells us about things we wish did not exist. But you won't be the same after you read this book. It's a must.
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