These tales, though sad and at times plain- spokenly didactic, are often lyrically beautiful and almost always very funny. 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.
Here, people treat each other (and life) with amused tolerance-although anger can easily erupt in this environment of endemic alcoholism and despair. 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.
0 kommentar(er)
