Blasphemy

Starred review from July 23, 2012
The National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award-winner’s latest work combines 15 classics (“The Toughest Indian in the World”; “Salt”; “Indian Education”) with 15 recent stories of varying length and tenor, and the result should attract new converts and invite back longtime fans. Heralded for his candid depictions of life on a reservation in the Pacific Northwest, versatile Alexie traverses familiar territory while also branching out. A son envisions his dead father’s “impossibly small corpse” peering out of his morning omelet in the page-long “Breakfast.” In “Gentrification,” a white narrator’s do-gooder intentions go predictably awry in his all-black neighborhood. “Night People” finds a sex-starved insomniac and a connection-hungry manicurist at a 24-hour New York City salon finding common ground in their loneliness and lack of sleep. In “Faith,” a married man and a married woman at an evangelical dinner party who have an instantly easy rapport deliver witty repartee at the expense of their sheepish spouses. As in previous volumes, Alexie hammers away at ever-simmering issues, like racism, addiction, and infidelity, using a no-holds-barred approach and seamlessly shattering the boundary between character and reader. But while these glimpses into a harried and conflicted humanity prod our consciousness, there’s plenty of bawdiness and Alexie’s signature wicked humor throughout to balance out the weight. Agent: Nancy Stauffer Associates.

Starred review from September 1, 2012
Sterling collection of short stories by Alexie (Ten Little Indians, 2003, etc.), a master of the form. The reader can take his or her pick of points where the blasphemy of Alexie's title occurs in this multifaceted assemblage, for there are several solid candidates. One falls about two-thirds of the way in, when a hard-boiled newspaper editor chews out a young Indian writer who might be Alexie's semblable. By that young man's count, the editor had used the word "Jesus" thrice in 15 seconds: "I wasn't a Christian and didn't know much about the definition of blasphemy," Alexie writes, "but it seemed like he'd committed some kind of sin." In Alexie's stories, someone is always committing some kind of sin, and often not particularly wittingly. One character, a bad drinker in need of help to bail out some prized pawned regalia, makes about as many errors as it's possible to make while still remaining a fundamentally decent person; another laments that once you start looking at your loved one as though he or she is a criminal, then the love is out the door. "It's logical," notes Alexie, matter-of-factly. Most of Alexie's characters in these stories--half selected and half new--are Indians, and then most of them Spokanes and other Indians of the Northwest; but within that broad categorization are endless variations and endless possibilities for misinterpretation, as when a Spokane encounters three mysterious Aleuts who sing him all the songs they're allowed to: "All the others are just for our people," which is to say, other Aleuts. Small wonder that when they vanish, no one knows where, why, or how. But ethnicity is not as central in some of Alexie's stories as in others; in one of the most affecting, the misunderstandings and attendant tragedies occur between humans and donkeys. The darkness of that tale is profound, even if it allows Alexie the opportunity to bring in his beloved basketball. Longtime readers will find the collection full of familiar themes and characters, but the newer pieces are full of surprises. Whether recent or from his earliest period, these pieces show Alexie at his best: as an interpreter and observer, always funny if sometimes angry, and someone, as a cop says of one of his characters, who doesn't "fit the profile of the neighborhood."

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Starred review from July 1, 2012
A poet and fiction writer for adults of all ages, National Book Award winner Alexie is a virtuoso of the short story. His first two blazing collections, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993) and The Toughest Indian in the World (2000), established him as an essential American voice. Now, many books later, best-selling Alexie has created a substantial, big-hearted, and potent collection that combines an equal number of new and selected stories to profound effect. In these comfort-zone-destroying tales, including the masterpiece, War Dances, his characters grapple with racism, damaging stereotypes, poverty, alcoholism, diabetes, and the tragic loss of languages and customs. Questions of authenticity and identity abound. In The Search Engine, a Spokane college student tries to understand a poet raised by a white couple who no longer writes because he fears that he isn't Indian enough. In the wrenching Cry, Cry, Cry, two cousins take very different paths toward being tribal, while in Emigration, a man who left the reservation trusts that his daughters will keep their tribe's spirit alive. Alexie writes with arresting perception in praise of marriage, in mockery of hypocrisy, and with concern for endangered truths and imperiled nature. He is mischievously and mordantly funny, scathingly forthright, deeply and universally compassionate, and wholly magnetizing. This is a must-have collection. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: As Alexie's creative adventurousness grows, so, too, does his popular acclaim. Expect his latest to raise the bar still further.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2012

This collection includes some of the best-known short pieces by Alexie (War Dances), along with a number of new stories. Loss, loyalty, dying fathers, basketball, Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest, and life on a reservation are themes repeated throughout. In "Whatever Happened to Frank Snake Church?" a man experiences a false vision of the death of his father and later, when grappling with real loss, tries to recapture his love of basketball. In "Breaking and Entering," a Native American man, misidentified as white, is vilified after fighting off an intruder in his home. The protagonist in "Gentrification" makes an enemy when he decides to remove a dirty mattress from the neighbor's sidewalk, while in "Old Growth," an accidental killing is awkwardly resolved. At times explicitly the subject of the story, as with "Indian Education," cultural identity is not always the dominant theme. For instance, "Do You Know Where I Am?" tells of a couple's courtship, life together and the lies they've told, while "Night People," features a New York manicurist who is watched at work for months from a nearby terrace. VERDICT A large and diverse collection for fans of literary short stories. [See Prepub Alert, 4/30/12.]--John R. Cecil, Austin, TX

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2012

PEN/Faulkner and National Book Award winner Alexie writes sculpted prose that lands like a good, hard punch; his stories, especially, are knockouts. So this juicy collection of 15 of his best-known short fiction and 15 new pieces (which range in topic from donkey basketball leagues to dangerous wind turbines) should be a winner. With a first serial sold to Harper's and a 13-city tour.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.