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The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven | Introduction

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, published in 1993 by Atlantic Monthly Press, was Sherman Alexie's breakthrough book. Comprised of twenty-two interconnected stories with recurring characters, the work is often described by critics as a short-story collection, though some argue that it has novel-like features similar to Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine. The book's central characters, Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire, are two young Native-American men living on the Spokane Indian Reservation, and the stories describe their relationships, desires, and histories with family members and others who live on the reservation. Alexie fuses surreal imagery, flashbacks, dream sequences, diary entries, and extended poetic passages with his storytelling to create tales that resemble prose poems more than conventional narratives.

The book's title is derived from one of the collection's stories, which details the experience of a Native American who leaves the reservation to live in Seattle with his white girlfriend and then moves back. The Lone Ranger and Tonto are symbols for white and Native-American identity, respectively. The names are taken from a popular radio and television show of the 1950s in which a white man, the Lone Ranger, teams up with an Indian, Tonto, to battle evil in the old west. Alexie, who claims the title came to him from a dream, studs his stories with other references to popular culture to underscore the ways in which representations of Native Americans have played a part in constructing the image they, and others, now have of them. The book's popularity, in part, stems from James Kincaid' s effusive praise of Alexie's collection of poetry and stories, The Business of Fancy-dancing (1992), in The New York Times Book Review. With Kincaid's review, Alexie, who had published with small presses, was thrust into the national spotlight. He deftly depicts the struggles of Native Americans to survive in a world that remains hostile to their very survival, and he does so in an honest and artful manner. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven won a PEN-Hemingway nomination for best first book of fiction and was adapted into a feature film, Smoke Signals in 1998, for which Alexie wrote the screenplay.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven Summary

Every Little Hurricane
This first story of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven introduces Victor, his parents, and his uncles, Arnold and Adolph, who are quarreling during a New Year's Eve party when Victor is nine-years-old, in 1976. The weather forecast is for a hurricane, and the narrator surveys the bizarre behavior of many of the Indians on the reservation, many of them drunk and angry, recalling some wrong that had been done to them. The story also contains a flashback to when Victor was five years old and his parents could not afford to buy him anything for Christmas. Alexie introduces the themes he will develop throughout the book such as the relationship between the real and the imaginary, reservation poverty, and the idea of memory as an index of social and individual identity. Victor is a fictionalized version of Alexie, as the author has admitted.

A Drug Called Tradition
In this story, Thomas Builds-the-Fire is hosting the "second-largest party in reservation history." The first was the New Year's Eve party in the first story. Thomas, Junior, and Victor take a ride to Benjamin Lake, where they ingest an unspecified drug and proceed to have visions during which they earn their adult Indian names by stealing horses. Events from the past frequently bleed into the present during this story, illustrating Victor's claim that "Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you, and your future is a skeleton walking one step in front of you."

Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play "The Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock
In this story, Victor recounts memories of his father coming home drunk during the 1960s and listening to Jimi Hendrix play "The Star Spangled Banner." As a child, Victor would share in his father's drunken ritual, putting the song on the stereo as he walked in the house, and then curling up and sleeping at his feet after he passed out. Jimi Hendrix, part Cherokee Indian, was a Seattle-born rock and roll star who gained fame for his masterful guitar playing. He died in 1970 at 27, choking on his own vomit while being taken to the hospital, purportedly due to drug abuse. Victor recounts that his father's love of Hendrix played a role in the breakup of his parents' marriage, as did his alcoholism and desire to be alone.

Crazy Horse Dreams
In this very short story, Victor relates an experience he had with a woman at a powwow. He draws on the image of Crazy Horse, a famous Sioux warrior, to show how contemporary Indian men cannot measure up to the ideal of Crazy Horse. The woman Victor meets at a fry bread stand and seduces wants him to be something he is not. "His hands were small. Somehow she was still waiting for Crazy Horse."

The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Don't Flash Red Anymore
In this story, Victor and Adrian, reformed alcoholics, sit on their front porch, drink Pepsi, and discuss basketball and the reservation's rising star, Julius Windmaker, who, like Victor and other rising stars before him, eventually succumbs to alcoholism. The story ends with the two having a similar conversation about a talented young Indian girl named Lucy. Adrian and Victor hope that she can develop her talents and not begin drinking.

Amusements
In this story, Sadie and Victor play a prank on an old drunk Indian called Dirty Joe, putting him on a carnival ride when he passes out. A security guard chases Victor, who runs into the Fun House and sees his image distorted in "crazy mirrors."

This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona
This is one of the stories adapted for the film Smoke Signals. After learning that his father has died in Phoenix, Arizona, Victor decides to retrieve his belongings and his ashes. Thomas Builds-the-Fire offers to give Victor the money to make the trip if he can go with... » Complete The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven Summary