Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Alexie, Sherman (Vol. 154) - Howard Meredith (review date Spring 1996)

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Howard Meredith (review date Spring 1996)

SOURCE: Meredith, Howard. Review of Reservation Blues, by Sherman Alexie. World Literature Today 70, no. 2 (spring 1996): 446–47.

[In the following review, Meredith examines the incorporeal motifs and the spiritual importance of the reservation in Reservation Blues.]

The art of Sherman Alexie surprises and delights the reader as the dreamlike images and hard-edged realities in Reservation Blues find a center on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Form and content act in unity to provide a captivating story of the tragic sense of life within a Spokane frame of reference. This beautifully written vision of the earth invites participation in specific patterns of existence.

Reservation Blues provides an intimate perception of Spokane tribal tenets and mood within a multicultural frame of reference. Death, alcohol, poverty, book-burning, and child abuse find their place, along...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Leslie Ullman (review date summer 1993)
   2. Verlyn Klinkenborg (review date 18 June 1995)
   3. Denise Low (review date winter 1996)
   4. Jennifer Gillan (essay date March 1996)
   5. Lee Lemon (review date Spring 1996)
   6. Howard Meredith (review date Spring 1996)
   7. Sherman Alexie and Doug Marx (interview date 16 September 1996)
   8. Madison Smart Bell (review date 17 November 1996)
   9. Sherman Alexie and Erik Himmelsbach (interview date 17 December 1996)
   10. Judith Bolton-Fasman (review date 6 January 1997)
   11. Robert L. Berner (review date spring 1997)
   12. Peter Donahue (essay date Spring 1997)
   13. Ron McFarland (essay date Spring 1997)
   14. Sherman Alexie and John Purdy (interview date 4 October 1997)
   15. Michael Gorra (review date 5 March 1998)
   16. Sherman Alexie and Dennis West and Joan M. West (interview date fall 1998)
   17. Dan Georgakas (review date fall 1998)
   18. Jonathan Levi (review date 18 June 2000)
   19. Jonathan Penner (review date 9 July 2000)
   20. Joyce Carol Oates (review date 20 July 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Sherman Alexie