Rating: 
Summary: POWERFUL!
Review: Real life, on and off the Reservation. This is a collection of insightful, unflinching, yet sometimes laugh-out-loud funny snapshots of contemporary Native American life. Here is one of my favorites: "Adrian and I sat on the porch and watched the reservation. Nothing happened. From our chairs made rockers by unsteady legs, we could see that the only traffic signal on the reservation had stopped working. ... We watched the grass grow and the rivers flow." (Which, of course, is treaty language.) "It's hard to be optimistic on the reservation. When a glass sits on a table here, people don't wonder if it's half filled or half empty. They just hope it's good beer. Still, Indians have a way of surviving. But it's almost like Indians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language and land rights. It's the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn't take an order, Tonto, the Washington Redskins."
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Summary: A victim's perspective on prejudice and benign neglect
Review: This collection of Alexie's stories are eloquent, quick reading, and eloquent. However, white liberals will still find them an awkward and painful read, regardless how enlightened they perceive themselves and whether they are in agreement that American Indians are victims of oppression. Alexie speaks from the perspective of a victim of white oppression and with understandable resentment, anger, and prejudice against Caucasians. Many well intentioned whites will find these stories difficult to embrace, and certainly not "enjoyable". In this respect I found reading these stories reminiscent of the experience reading Elderidge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice" -- awkward and disturbing, but undeniably valid. Alexie's stories are educational, and essential as they introduce us to a perspective and condition with which most Americans are entirely unfamiliar -- decidedly "benign neglect". While the context is depressing: poverty, alcoholism, poor self image, an absence of motivation, and the distain, if not active hostility of the majority population, Alexie's tales also are warm and touching. Despite the destructiveness of the circumstances into which American Indians are born, he describes a proud group self identity (if often ambivalent) and the importance of family and community among American Indians, despite the challenges which work to pull them apart. Sensitive, profound, and often sardonic, these are very important stories and we owe Alexie our gratitude for providing them.
Rating: 
Summary: bleak but interesting
Review: Sherman Alexie, himself a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, writes with great wit and obvious anguish about life on the modern Indian reservation. This book, it isn't really a novel but 22 interlinked stories, depicts a life where alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, car wrecks and violence compete with history for a claim on the residents' souls and where the worst epithet is "apple", an Indian who is red on the outside but white on the inside. The cumulative impact of the stories is to create a sense of despair. It seems like the characters are unwilling to break out of a hopeless cycle of doom, defeatism and failure. The best of the stories, "This Is What it Means to say Phoenix, Arizona", offers a glimpse at the possibility for something better. The stories are relatively free of the New Age wise Indian pabulum we see so much of and despite a few dated and silly references to things like El Salvador, overt politics doesn't intrude much. Best of all, Alexie does not make excuses for his characters. He recognizes that their dismal lives are the product of conscious choices, but that the choices are bad ones. This is the great strength of the book, his ability to judge the characters harshly, yet present them with obvious affection. However bleak, this is a very interesting book. GRADE: B-
Rating:
Summary: Great Collection of Stories.
Review: This is an awesome collection, but when you read it, keep in mind that the stories are not supposed to be connected. Each wonderful story stands on its own and portrays reservation life from the perspective of different characters, although some characters appear peripherally in more than one story. Some may say that Alexie is angry and that this book describes a life of alcoholic depressiveness on the Rez; in reality he is just describing much of what is. There is love and caring and pride and intelligence right next to the stuff one might consider ugly. Reading this book will alternately make you sad and happy--that's what Life is anyway. And go rent the movie, Smoke Signals; Alexie wrote the screenplay for it based on some of the scenes from this book, but don't expect the book to be like the movie or vice versa. Alexie is a talented young writer who deserves the attention he is getting.
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Summary: Dear Mr. Alexie
Review: I hope you check out this site once in awhile. Just wanted to say Thank you.
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Summary: Stories, prose poems & vignettes of Reservation life
Review: My son sent me this book in the mail and recommended that I read it. He said that he was loving the book and "laughing like a madman." Since I enjoyed the movie, Smoke Signals, which was losely based on the book, I took my son's recommendation. The first thing that struck me about Alexie's writing is that although there is much humor, it is a kind of humor that elicits guilty laughter: the kind that when you do laugh you immediately look around to see if you are being observed. At first I was not sure if this uncomfortableness was because I was a white reader or if Alexie (knowing that he would have a large white audience) was just displaying his anger. And there is a great deal of anger in this book; but there is also a great deal of humanity, and by the end of the book I decided that Alexie is not grinding his ax, only describing a life that he knows in every detail. It is up to the reader to make his own interpretation and his own moral examination. This is not to imply that the book is not enjoyable. It is eminently readable and Alexie displays a style that combines poetry, mysticism, and an understanding of the human condition that is remarkable. He describes life on the Spokane Indian Reservation with poignancy and without any trace of pathos that permeates similar works. His characters are fully drawn and occupy real space, and the reader feels that he has actually spent time with them. To repeat, it is an angry as well as a funny book. The reader's decisions to laugh out loud or surreptitiously will probably be an indication of how well that person is comfortable with hiw own moral framework. I think that Alexie would want his readers, both Indian and white, to laugh "like a mandman."
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Summary: ORIGINAL, QUIRKY, AND OFF-BEAT
Review: I'd heard of Sherman Alexie for a couple of years: he's often mentioned in lists of noteworthy Native American writers. So I bought THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO FISTFIGHT IN HEAVEN on name recognition only. Out of curiousity. This book is wonderfully original and quirky, off-beat with authentic characters. The stories, most of which I liked, seem to tell the truth about what it's like to live in the northwest on the Spokane reservation. The author's use of language is masterful. Be prepared for quirky, off-beat humor as well. The book manages to be poignant and ironical at the same time (as in "Crazy Horse Dreams", in which a character says,"'Nothing more hopeless than a sober Indian'"). My favorite stories: "Jesus Christ's Half-Brother Is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation" and "Indian Education." If you read and like this book, check out SMOKE SIGNALS--the movie based on Mr. Alexie's book by the same name.
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Summary: Excellent epic of short stories
Review: Sherman Alexie is my favorite contemporary writer. Strangely, I read Indian Killer first, then I proceded onto this great collection. Obviously, the two works are strikingly different but both excellent. I liked this one better. Alexie truly captured life on the Reservation and Indian life in general and how Native Americans relate, survive, stay together in modern America. Above else, this book made me think about a culture I grew up near but didn't pay much attention to. Alexie is truly one of America's best writers.
Rating:
Summary: Lyrically Exquisite
Review: This book is a must have for anyone who loves a story where the words roll right off the page. Wonderful stories that can only be amplified by watching Smoke Signals which is based on this collection. A friend turned me onto alexie and now I'll be buying it all up.
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Summary: To clear some stuff up
Review: I have to say, that this book is the most amazing book I have ever read. The story of Victor and Thomas intrigued me so much. In fact, I have found a movie entitled 'Smoke Signals' It focuses on the lives of Victor and Thomas and the long Journey they take together while Thomas tells his stories and victor gets annoyed but in the end it did not matter because they realize that they are true friends. Victor finally learns to accept his father for what he was. I highly recomend renting this movie, you will see and understand much more clearly. "It's a good day to be indiginous, ain't it"
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