cordially but with little respect by the police, who have called the father in to the police station for little reason, requiring a long journey on dangerous, icy roads. Returning home, they join their strong and apparently happy family, the redeeming quality of their lives. The story is simple, even superficial, but in the course of it, the issues of white-Indian relationships, alcoholism and personal responsibility, death and disappearances, and the warm bond of the family are subtly yet effectively explored.

Other stories deal with the narrator’s relationship with a white woman (“The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”), the trials of schooling (“Indian Education”), illness and death (“The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor”), and alcoholism (“Amusements”). Still others adopt a more mystical tone and experimental style to examine the art of storytelling (“A Good Story,” “The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire”), alternate history (“Distances”), and dreams of the future (“Imagining the Reservation”).

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is Sherman Alexie’s first full-length work of fiction. In 1992, Hanging Loose Press published his The Business of Fancydancing (see Magill’s Literary Annual 1993) praised for its mythmaking power to portray the inner lives and unspoken conflicts of Native Americans caught with “one foot in the reservation and the other in the outside world.” In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Alexie continues to write about a native culture whose traditions, such as powwows and oral storytelling, have been replaced by strip joints and cable television. His characters, many of whom first appeared in The Business of Fancydancing, are most often seen sitting on the porch steps of Housing and Urban Development houses, as if trapped by genetic and genocidal footfalls-such as alcoholism, diabetes, self-loathing, all of which have contributed to the dissipation of Native Americans (a population that only in the late twentieth century topped the one-million mark, an estimated 75-90 percent less than when whites first arrived in North America). Not much else happens in this collection. A paralytic sense of stasis strips these stories of dramatic action or conventional, conflict-centered plot. Unlike other writers’ work that is devoid of narrative movement—ennui-driven stories that oftentimes exist entirely within the four blank walls of a room-Alexie’s stories are haunted by what has already happened: not yesterday, or the day before yesterday, but as long ago as one hundred years. Time is stretched elastic in Alexie’s trickster hands. He dramatizes the post-trickle-down plight of the Native American in the framework of a historical past that is still very much alive, though not at all well.

Victor, the protagonist in nearly half of these stories, explains this concept of a living past in “A Drug Called Tradition”:

Indians never need to wear a watch because your skeletons will always remind you about the time. See, it is always now. That’s what Indian time is. The past, the future, all of it wrapped up in the now. That’s how it is. We are trapped in the now.

Alexie’s characters are trapped by a tradition whose “whole lives have to do with survival.” As Alexie once wrote in a “Contributors’ Advice” section of Caliban, “it is our strongest tradition, our longest dance, to remain alive, to survive.” Yet for many of Alexie’s characters, a central question still exists: How do we live? Oras the narrator of “Witnesses, Secret and Not”-the strongest piece in the collection-puts it: “I had to find out what it meant to be Indian, and there ain’t no self-help manuals for that.”

The best stories in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven shed light on not only what it means to survive but, more important, what it means to live. As W. S. Merwin wrote in his poem “The River of Bees,” “On the door it says what to do to survive/ But we were not born to survive/ Only to live.”

The first nine stories in this book focus on and are told from the perspective of Victor. In the opening story, “Every Little Hurricane,” the reader witnesses through the eyes of Victor the magical, metaphorical hurricane that “dropped from the sky in 1976 and fell so hard on the Spokane Indian Reservation that it knocked Victor from bed and his latest nightmare.” It is New Year’s Eve. Upstairs, Victor’s parents are hosting the largest New Year’s Eve party in tribal history, a drunken celebration that comes to a head suddenly when an argument between Victor’s uncles, Adolph and Arnold, turns into a fistfight fueled by all the bad blood that has ever existed between the two. The story-the storm itself—does not end here. Instead, the winds “moved from Indian to Indian…giving each a specific painful memory.

Victor’s father remembered the time his own father was spit on as they waited for a bus in Spokane.

Victor’s mother remembered how the Indian Health Service doctor sterilized her moments after Victor was born.…

Other Indians at the party remembered their own pain. This pain grew, expanded. …Indians continued to drink, harder and harder.

At this point in the story, the focus shifts back to Victor, a nine-year-old boy who is in bed “watching…[as] the ceiling lowered with the weight of each Indian’s pain,” a legacy of hurt that Victor stands first in line to inherit. Victor manages to squirm out from underneath this claustrophobic coffin and goes off in search of his parents, who are both passed out drunk in bed. Victor climbs in with them, between them. When he kisses them good night he tastes the mixture of whiskey. smoke, and cheap beer sweating out front their bodies. On this note, the story winds down to its lyrical end:

“The hurricane that fell out of the sky in 1976 left before sunrise, and all the Indians, the eternal survivors, gathered to count their losses.”

In the twenty-one stories that follow, Alexie counts down the losses that have shaped an entire tradition of Native Americans. If there is one lesson that Alexie wants his readers to learn, it is this: “Indians have a way of surviving.” Although Alexie is adept at portraying the lives of characters who have for a hundred years been beaten down by the short end of the stick, his greatest gift as a storyteller is his ability to intermix a brand of pathos that can only rise up out of tragedy with a rib- splitting hilarity that somehow always follows a good cry. If it is true that Indians have a way of surviving, then perhaps Alexie has drawn strength and transcended the temptations of self-pity through laughter. Like Samuel, one of two main tale- telling characters in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Alexie is a writer whose stories possess “the power to teach, to show how this life should be lived…[or] at the very least, he could tell funny stories that would make each day less painful.” At the least, Alexie achieves in his stories moments of near-cathartic comic relief-moments that allow readers a brief breath of fresh air from what Reynolds Price has labeled Alexie’s “minimalist gloom.”

More often than not though, the twenty-two stories gathered in this at times promising collection suffer from a chronically monochromatic stasis. Far too often, Alexie takes too much for granted. The reader is told very little about these characters. One is told virtually nothing physical about their world. There is no shortage of generic references to “HUD houses” and Diet Pepsi-hollow surface details that echo a trend from the early to mid-1980’s, a time when works by young writers such as Amy Hempel, Tama Janowitz, Jay Mclnerney, and Bret Easton Ellis (among a dozen or more other offenders) were plagued by a tendency to place too much emphasis on brand and designer names. What about the intimate, telling details that help bring the world to life on the page? Is the reader to assume what Victor or Samuel Builds-a-Fire looks like? If so, based on what?

Most readers carry a few basic expectations when they approach a work of fiction. At the very least, they intend to access a world that has been fully imagined and re-created by the writer-a fictional landscape that has, as Raymond Carver was fond of pointing out, “lines of reference to the real world.” In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Alexie fails to draw the reader consistently into his world, a world wherein characters live each day by the credo “We just watch things happen and then make comments. It’s all about reaction as opposed to action.” Though it may be true that the characters in this collection spend their days watching things happen, Alexie neglects to infuse them with the heightened powers of observation that are necessary to make a piece of fiction sing with both clarity and insight. It is possible to build stories around moments or situations in which action is subordinated in favor of reaction or voice. In order to do this successfully, however, a writer must rely on some kind of original (not to be confused with experimental) stylistic maneuver to propel the narrative-to impel the reader into the narrative.

There is, undoubtedly, a strong lyric talent lurking in this book. At the age of twenty-seven-an age when many American writers are still enrolled in a graduate writing program-Sherman Alexie has produced a body of work that deserves to be noted for its flawed promise. One can only hope that Alexie’s next book is fleshed out with concrete details of life as it is seen and reseen through the eyes of a writer whose limited scope has plenty of room left to grow.

Three of the longest, most fully developed stories in this collection-“Jesus Christ’s Half-Brother Is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation,” “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,” and “Witnesses, Secret and Not”-serve as indications of what a young talent such as Alexie is capable of achieving when he is working at the height of his powers. In each of these stories Alexie allows his characters to set foot outside the limits of the reservation. By doing so Alexie is better able to dramatize the one central conflict with which his characters all seem to be struggling-a conflict that is articulated best by Samuel Builds-A-Fire, a storyteller whose stories have been silenced by a burgeoning indifference, because “the younger people on the reservation had no time for stories”: “At the halfway point of any drunken night, there is a moment when an Indian realizes he cannot turn back toward tradition and that he has no map to guide him toward the future.” In the title story, James Many-Horses tells of a time when he worked and lived in Seattle with his white girlfriend. One day he realizes, though, that he can never feel at home away from the Spokane Indian Reservation. Yet once he returns home, he resumes his position on the couch, back to doing nothing, ignoring his mother’s pleas to find a job. For months he resigns himself to the inescapable wisdom of “an old Indian poet who said that Indians can reside in the city, but they can never live there.” He eventually reaches a compromise with himself and the world outside the reservation: He finds a job in nearby Spokane- “working at the high school exchange program… typing and answering phones”-still close enough to feel at home. Still, at the story’s end, he is left wondering “if the people on the other end of the line know that I’m Indian and if their voices would change if they did know.” It is clear that James Many-Horses is trapped by the paralyzing, paradoxical realization that “he cannot turn back toward tradition and that he has no map to guide him toward the future.”

It will be interesting to watch where Sherman Alexie’s talents take him in the future. The best stories in this collection confirm that this writer has something important to say. One may hope that in the coming years he will come to realize that in order to tell a story, he must first learn how to see.

Bibliography

Alexie, Sherman. Interview by Dennis West and Joan M. West. Cineaste 23 (1998): 28-32. Alexie responds to questions about the similarities and differences between his novel The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and his movie Smoke Signals. His comments on the autobiographical elements of both are particularly interesting.

Egan, Timothy. “An Indian Without Reservations.” New York Times Magazine, January 18, 1998, 16-19. Profiles Sherman Alexie and his Indian background. Covers Alexie’s comedic look into the hardships of being a Native American; his vocal attacks on author Barbara Kingsolver; the making of film versions of his books; and the life on the reservation where he was raised.

Low, Denise. Review of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie. American Indian Quarterly 20 (Winter, 1996): 123-125. Low discusses the postmodern characteristics of Alexie’s novel, focusing on his use of humor and irony. She praises the book for its deft mingling of popular and Native American cultures.

Price, Reynolds. “One Indian Doesn’t Tell Another.” The New York Times Book Review, October 17, 1993, 15-16. Price, a short-story writer himself, finds moments of monotony and obsessive gloom in some of Alexie’s stories. He also expresses disappointment at the spare plots and lack of detail, which others might consider Alexie’s mythic voice. Finally, though, he praises the “lyric energy” and “exhilarating vitality” of these stories and looks forward to a more mature, broader vision from the writer.

Schneider, Brian. “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 13 (Fall, 1993): 237-238. This review focuses on Alexie’s use of myths and mythmaking to describe and support the Native American culture. Schneider especially praises Alexie’s ability to juxtapose humor and pathos with brutally honest prose.

Velie, Alan R. “World Literature in Review: Other European andf American Languages.” World Literature Today 68 (Spring, 1994): 407. Favorable review of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Velie compares Alexie’s novel to Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, pointing out the similarities in characterization and the use of humor. Concludes that “Alexie has turned the lives and dreams of the people of his reservation into superb literature.”

“Every Little Hurricane”: Young Victor Polatkin recalls reservation hurricanes, watching fights and seeing an old American Indian man drown in a mud puddle. He also remembers the alcoholism enveloping his people. Victor also realizes that his drunken father and mother embody an unnamed hurricane deep enough to destroy everything.

“A Drug Called Tradition”: A grown-up Victor, along with his brother Junior and Thomas Builds-the-Fire, a storyteller, experience a different Indian vision under the influence of a new drug. When Victor disavows the visions, Thomas walks away, both emotionally and physically. Later, spiritual guide Big Mom gives Victor a tiny drum as a “pager.” Though he never uses it, the drum becomes his “only religion,” which “fill[s] up the whole world.”

“Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ’The Star Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock”: Though the music of famed guitarist Jimi Hendrix brings Victor closer to his father, their family trip to Hendrix’s grave site signals the beginning of the end of his parents’ marriage. Victor’s father buys a motorcycle and eventually leaves the family, leaving Victor with only the imaginary sound of motorcycles and guitars.

“The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore”: Adrian and Victor talk about former reservation basketball heroes and wonder if Julius Windmaker will “make it.” Julius had been taken away by tribal police officers and eventually became an alcoholic.

“Amusements”: Victor and Sadie put a passed-out Indian on a roller coaster and laugh at the spectacle until the crowd disapproves. The man awakens, and the carny points to Victor as the culprit. While fleeing, Victor sees himself in the crazy mirrors, making him realize that he is “the Indian who offered up another Indian like some treaty.”

“This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona”: Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Victor reunite, recalling their sometimes violent history. Thomas reveals his reason for helping Victor retrieve Victor’s father’s ashes from Phoenix: Since childhood in Spokane, Thomas had been waiting for a vision, which Victor’s father inspired by saying “Take care of each other.” Later, when Victor gives Thomas part of the ashes in recompense, Thomas vows to toss them in Spokane Falls so that Victor’s father will ascend like a salmon, for “’Nothing stops, cousin.’”

“The Fun House”: Victor’s aunt swims naked in Tshimikain Creek. No one had helped her after a mouse had crawled up her pants. Returning to the house, she dons the full-length beaded dress that is too heavy for anyone else to wear and begins to dance, taking control of her life.

“All I Wanted to Do Was Dance”: To get over the white woman who left him, Victor drinks incessantly until he meets a Cherokee celebrating his birthday. The Cherokee says there is one way to tell a true Indian from a fake one: “The real Indian got blisters on his feet. The fake Indian got blisters on his ass,” alluding to the Trail of Tears.

“The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire”: During his trial for a manufactured offense, Thomas Builds-the-Fire breaks a twenty-year silence. His testimony morphs from story to story, all about the Spokane Indian past. Upon cross-examination, he becomes Wild Coyote, in his first battle, and regrettably recounts killing two of Steptoe’s soldiers. Thomas receives two concurrent life sentences in prison in Walla Walla, Washington.

“Distances”: All the whites are dead. Urban Indians all suffer from a disease that makes their skin and limbs fall off. The Others, returning from one thousand years ago, kill the Urban Indians. Although technology is taboo, the narrator increases the volume on the radio to hear only the sound of his own breathing.

“Jesus Christ’s Half-Brother Is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation”: James had been orphaned in a house fire. Unable to speak, he becomes the “religion” of his alcoholic foster father. After almost losing James because of his alcoholism, the father endures the ravages of delirium tremens to keep his son. When James finally “speaks,” he tells his father that they do not have the right to die for each other, only to live for each other.

“A Train Is an Order of Occurrence Designed to Lead to Some Result”: Thomas Builds-the-Fire is fired from his job at a motel. Depressed, he goes into a bar. He had resisted drinking before, knowing that alcohol will negate the power of his stories, which lead others to better lives. Pushed out of the bar at closing time, he stumbles onto the railroad tracks in the path of an oncoming train.

“Imagining the Reservation”: Harsh realities abound on the reservation, and so does bitterness. Dreams, hope, and the possibilities of survival exist, too. Laughter can save one’s life, and stories can “put wood in the fireplace.”

“The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor”: James Many Horses, suffering from terminal cancer, deals with the emotional pain through humor. After too many jokes, his wife, Norma Many Horses, leaves him. A few months later, James is home from the hospital. Norma returns home after abandoning her too-serious lover to help James die.

“Somebody Kept Saying Powwow”: When Junior Polatkin tells Norma Many Horses, the “cultural lifeguard” of the tribe, the story of ganging up with a bunch of white boys in college to beat up a reformed convict, Norma calls him another Pete Rose—always to be known for one bad thing. On a strange day, when a bear goes to sleep on the church roof, she forgives Junior.

“Witnesses, Secret or Not”: Junior goes with his father to Spokane for his annual interrogation about the disappearance of Jerry Vincent. When the detective asks the father if Vincent had been his friend, father replies “He still is.” Traveling home, father and son reflect on the metamorphosis that the disappeared undergo in the psyches of the living.

History and Culture of the Spokane Indians

As an enrolled member of the Spokane Coeur d'Alene tribe, Alexie draws from his experiences on the reservation in Wellpinit, Washington, to shape his narratives. Around 1,100 Spokane tribal members reside on the Spokane Indian Reservation, situated roughly 50 miles northwest of Spokane. This reservation includes a school and offices for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The Spokane Indians are part of the Interior Salish group, historically inhabiting northeastern Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana. The name "Spokane" translates to "Sun People." In the mid-19th century, white settlers encroaching on Spokane territories frequently clashed with the Indians, resulting in numerous casualties on both sides. In 1881, President Rutherford B. Hayes established the Spokane Reservation by executive order, and by 1906, land allotments were distributed to its residents. In 1940, Congress passed an act allowing the United States to acquire tribal land along the Spokane River for the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. This development significantly impacted the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene tribes' salmon fishing activities. The tribes had limited means to contest the government's actions until 1946 when the Indian Claims Commission was established to resolve claims by Indian tribes against the United States. The Spokane tribe filed a claim, asserting that the government inadequately compensated them for land under an 1887 cession agreement. In 1967, the tribe received a $6,700,000 settlement. Today, the tribe owns 104,003 acres of land.

1960s-1970s

Many stories in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven are set in the 1960s and 1970s. These decades were marked by significant tension between the federal government and Native Americans. Alexie frequently references the abuses by the BIA in his stories, including "Indian Education," where he details the overt efforts by government teachers to demean him and erase his Indian identity. Despite Native Americans being among the poorest in the United States, their population doubled from 500,000 to over one million between 1945 and 1975. Several activist groups emerged during this time, demanding autonomy from the federal government and justice for past wrongs. In 1969, militant Native American activists occupied Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay for eighteen months, advocating for the establishment of a Native American educational center. In 1972, thousands of Native Americans joined the "Trail of Broken Treaties" march to Washington, D.C., where they took over the BIA offices. In 1973, the American Indian Movement (AIM), an organization founded to help tribes reclaim their rights to their heritage and lands, seized the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. This was the site where U.S. troops had massacred over 300 Sioux in 1890. AIM argued that the Oglala Sioux tribal government was corrupted by its ties to the BIA and that the Sioux had been wronged in the 1868 Sioux treaty over the Black Hills. AIM took hostages and demanded the U.S. reopen treaty negotiations. AIM leaders Russell Means and Dennis Banks pressed the U.S. to return 1.3 million acres of the Black Hills taken from the Sioux. They also claimed that 371 treaties between Native Nations and the Federal Government had been violated by the U.S., calling for an investigation. The standoff ended after 71 days with a violent clash between AIM and U.S. Armed Forces, who had surrounded the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. A few AIM members were killed, and the government arrested 1,200 people. In the following years, the Pine Ridge reservation became a center of unrest and violence, as the BIA and the FBI sought to eliminate "instigators" and suppress Indian activism.

The setting of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven plays a crucial role in the stories and their meanings. The Spokane Indian Reservation presents a stark contrast to the America most young people are familiar with. Alexie openly portrays the poverty, the challenges, and the isolation of this life, yet almost none of the residents can successfully live elsewhere. Though not described in great detail, the "rez" is a rather desolate place made up of government-funded low-income HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) houses with TVs, the Powwow Tavern, the Trading Post, a Catholic church, and a fry bread stand. The cars are often broken down, job opportunities are scarce, food might include commodity cheese, the roads are in poor condition, and there is little activity. Despite this, the Native Americans call it home. While they might visit Spokane occasionally for dinner and a movie, few can live in the city. The reservation is tough, but urban American life seems nearly impossible. The setting mirrors the predicament of the modern Native American, not fully integrated into mainstream America yet not flourishing outside of it either, just caught in between.

Alexie does not romanticize his characters or their environment. Although the reservation may be located in a beautiful part of the country, the mountains, lakes, and forests are not highlighted. While Alexie notes that hunting is a common pastime, the only time characters "get back to nature" is when Victor and his friends go to Benjamin Lake to take drugs. In an interview with Erik Himmelsbach in the Los Angeles Times (December 17, 1996), Alexie stated that he rejected the Hollywood portrayal of Native American life. "They want sweat lodges and vision quests. They want Dances with Wolves, and I don't write that." The characters wear tennis shoes and T-shirts; they visit the Native American clinic when injured and get arrested by tribal police when drunk and crashing their cars. The community is small, and everyone knows each other. There is a strong sense of community, even as individuals grapple with their place in modern society.

The language enhances the harsh simplicity of the setting. The characters often use profanity or obscene language. Dialogue is direct. The unique expressions of the "rez" like "enit?" at the end of sentences add to the authenticity.

The setting is stripped down to the essentials, which emphasizes the raw emotional lives, deep relationships, and troubling issues of the characters. The few glimpses of the setting the author provides depict a tough place inhabited by even tougher people.

Style

Alexie utilizes postmodern techniques to craft his narratives. These techniques include blending historical figures and pop culture icons with characters of his own creation. For instance, in "Crazy Horse Dreams," he incorporates the Sioux warrior Crazy Horse as a symbolic figure to delve into how imagination shapes contemporary interactions. In other stories, he introduces cultural icons like Jesus Christ, Jimi Hendrix, the Lone Ranger, and Pete Rose as personal touchstones. Alexie also redefines traditional storytelling by combining diary entries, dream sequences, aphorisms, faux newspaper articles, multiple narrators, and stories within stories. A prime example of this is seen in "The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire," where Thomas assumes the personas of various historical figures, both human and animal, to recount events from over a century ago.

In Alexie's postmodern writing, the boundaries between fiction and fantasy, reality and dream, are often indistinguishable, and the storyline—if present—is frequently ambiguous. He skillfully shifts tones, transitioning from humor in one sentence to tragedy in the next. These rapid tonal changes create a playful linguistic surface that sometimes satirizes the very narrative he is constructing. Alexie critiques both white and Native American cultures. For example, in "Indian Education," Victor humorously critiques the Spokane Indian tradition of naming children: "I was always falling down; my Indian name was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody Nose or Steal-His-Lunch. Once, it was Cries-Like-a-White-Boy, even though none of us had seen a white boy cry." This ironic approach to tradition, genre, and self is pervasive throughout the collection.

Narrator

The narrator is the figure through whose perspective the story unfolds. This figure can be a character within the story or an external observer. Alexie employs a variety of narrators in this collection, including Thomas Builds-the-Fire, Jimmy Many Horses, Victor Joseph, and Junior. Although he predominantly uses the latter two, the variation in narrators and the use of both first- and third-person perspectives allow Alexie to create a multifaceted depiction of Native American life, viewed through diverse lenses.

Setting

The setting encompasses the location, era, and cultural backdrop where the characters exist and the narrative unfolds. Alexie's primary setting is the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington, though parts of the stories occasionally take place in Spokane or Seattle. He portrays the reservation as a rundown, impoverished area where disheartened residents spend their days drinking and playing basketball. When characters are employed, they perform manual labor such as driving trucks, sewing quilts, or working as clerks. Their diet includes government-supplied commodity beef and cheese, beer, and fry bread, a traditional Native American food. They reside in homes constructed by HUD (Housing and Urban Development). Most stories are set in the 1960s and 1970s, a time when reservation life was particularly grim but also a period when many tribes began advocating for their rights and seeking more self-governance and compensation for their lands. Characters often both work for and resent the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the federal agency responsible for managing reservation life.

Sherman Alexie showcases his exceptional literary talent in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. His stories are unconventional and nonlinear, rich in poetic elements, humor, and unforgettable characters. Alexie acknowledges that motifs of storytelling, dreams, and visions permeate his book, often blurring the lines between "real" and imagined. It is common to find stories within stories, filled with flashbacks or flash-forwards, making them as elusive as real life. In an interview with Dennis and Joan West for Cineaste (1998), Alexie stated, "I'm rarely interested in traditional narrative. My beginnings are as a poet. My first form of writing was poetry." Consequently, these twenty-two short stories possess numerous poetic qualities worth savoring. The imagery, metaphors, symbolism, sounds, and rhythm of Alexie's language are exemplified in the following ending from the story "Family Portrait":

The television was always loud, too loud, until every emotion was measured by the half hour. We hid our faces behind masks that suggested other histories; we touched hands accidentally and our skin sparkled like a personal revolution. We stared across the room at each other, waited for the conversation, watched wasps and flies battering against the windows. We were children; we were open mouths. Open in hunger, in anger, in laughter, in prayer. Jesus, we all want to survive.

Examples of poetic writing are plentiful. Sometimes, Alexie crafts poetry from a simple yet profound and well-placed sentence, such as "The ordinary can be like medicine" or "Today I am walking between water, two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, and the energy expelled is named Forgiveness." Some stories are introduced with literary quotes or poems by other writers, such as this one before "A Train is an Order of Occurrence Designed to Lead to Some Result":

there is something about

trains, drinking, and being

an indian with nothing to lose.

—Ray Young Bear

Additionally, the shifting points of view from one story to the next, and even within stories, enhance the poetic quality, which relies more on imagery and emotions than a traditional plot. Although the stories are driven more by dialogue or introspection and action than by description, the brief descriptions often possess a lyrical quality, such as "There is something beautiful about an Indian boy with hair so black it collects the sunlight" or "He wanted to sing but he couldn't think of any lyrics. He was drunk, bruised by whiskey, brutal. His hair was electricity."

Modern humor is a significant literary feature in these stories. Jokes, dark humor, and character-driven humor contribute to the stories' realistic feel and prevent any sense of self-pity. Ironic jokes, such as the one about an educated Native American attending "Reservation University," enable the characters to foster community and mock their own circumstances. Dark humor highlights the characters' resilience, like when Victor and Adrian laugh uncontrollably about the reservation traffic signal needing repair, despite only one car passing by each hour. Humor humanizes the characters, making them less exotic or strange and far from the "noble savage" stereotype. For instance, one Native American owns a car that only drives in reverse, people joke, "Somebody forgot the charcoal; blame the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs)," and a character named Raymond arrives drunk at his cousin's wedding, attempting to give a eulogy. This humor dismantles any romanticized ideas about modern Native American life. Additionally, Alexie believes humor is a political tool that engages people in the stories. In his Cineaste interview, Alexie remarks, "Humor is really just about questioning the status quo, that's all it is." Humor serves as a powerful tool to provoke thought on serious issues and keep the fiction grounded in reality.

Moreover, realistic dialogue, references to contemporary pop culture, and the fragmented, open-ended nature of the stories enhance the characters' vitality and the significance of their lives. These Native Americans converse like real people: they joke around, use profanity, and avoid giving polished speeches. They are also affected by the same cultural influences as everyone else; they drink diet Pepsi and visit 7-11. They all watch television. Their stories often lack tidy conclusions, offering no easy lessons. However, readers can gain a deep understanding and appreciation of modern Native American life through Sherman Alexie's art in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

Due to its language, some sexual content, and literary sophistication, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is best suited for older teens. Alexie exposes readers to the realities of drinking, unemployment, poor nutrition, and discrimination faced by many Native Americans in the United States. Though he is clearly critical of both American history and contemporary society, Alexie avoids a "victim" narrative. The characters are depicted as strong individuals with distinct personalities, and their humor and compassion elevate the work beyond mere criticism. These stories honor Native American characters without depicting them as flawless martyrs or helpless victims. Racism and its impacts are portrayed as complex and sometimes nuanced. The stories encourage thoughtful, ongoing discussions about diversity, identity, and prejudice.

Though Alexie doesn’t specifically aim his writing at young adults, readers might still appreciate his other works. These include his debut novel, Reservation Blues (1995); his second novel, Indian Killer (1996); his collection of short stories, The Toughest Indian in the World (2000); and his poetry collections, such as First Indian on the Moon (1993), Old Shirts and New Skins (1993), Water Flowing Home (1995), The Summer of Black Widows (1996), and The Man Who Loves Salmon (1998).

Particularly noteworthy is the film Smoke Signals, adapted from a short story and parts of several others in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Hailed as the "first Indian-produced, Indian-directed, Indian-written feature film" with Native American actors and filmed on location, Smoke Signals debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the audience award for most popular film. Released by Miramax in 1998, the film earned a Christopher Award in 1999, an award that "affirms the highest values of the human spirit," and Alexie received a nomination for the Independent Feature Project/West 1999 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. The film garnered numerous positive reviews.

The plot is more conventional than Alexie's usual style, centering on Victor and Thomas's journey to Phoenix to retrieve Victor's deceased father's belongings. While the language has been toned down, the humor remains intact, the acting is commendable, and the film vividly portrays contemporary Native American life. Young audiences will particularly connect with the coming-of-age theme as Victor navigates his feelings about his father and develops a newfound respect for the "nerd" Thomas. Smoke Signals is a warm, funny, yet thought-provoking movie suitable for both young adults and adults.

Directed by Chris Eyre and recipient of two Sundance Film Festival awards, Smoke Signals (1998) is based on stories from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. You can find it at most video rental stores and many libraries.

Alexie, Sherman. "I Hated Tonto (Still Do)." Los Angeles Times (June 28, 1998). Alexie critiques the Hollywood portrayal of Native Americans in films and novels such as "Billy Jack" and "The Searchers."

"White Men Can't Drum." New York Times Magazine (October 4, 1992): 30. Alexie explores the inappropriate appropriation of Native American traditions by the predominantly white men's movement.

Benlante, John, and Carl Benlante. "Sherman Alexie, Literary Rebel." Bloomsbury Review, vol. 14 (May/June 1994): 14-15, 26. This piece features an interview with Sherman Alexie.

Gillian, Jennifer. "Reservation Home Movies: Sherman Alexie's Poetry." American Literature, vol. 68 (1996): 91-110. These poems convey Alexie's sorrow over not experiencing the true American landscape before Hollywood distorted Native American representations.

Sources

Alexie, Sherman, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993.

Bellante, Carl, and John Bellante, "Sherman Alexie, Literary Rebel," in Bloomsbury Review, No. 14, May-June 1994, pp. 14-15, 26.

Low, Denise, Review of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, in American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 1, Winter 1996, p. 123.

Millard, Kenneth, Contemporary American Fiction, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 96-103.

Schneider, Brian, Review of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, in the Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 1993, pp. 237-38.

Steinberg, Sybil S., Review of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 240, No. 29, July 19, 1993, p. 235.

Tokuyama, Gramyo, Review of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, in Whole Earth Review, No. 86, Fall 1995, p. 57.

Velie, Alan R., Review of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, in World Literature Today, Vol. 68, No. 2, Spring 1996, pp. 407-408.

Further Reading

Cline, Lynn, "About Sherman Alexie," in Ploughshares, Vol. 26, Issue 4, Winter 2000, pp. 197-202.
Cline's article provides a concise overview of the key events in Alexie's life and literary career.

Donahue, Peter, "New Warriors, New Legends: Basketball in Three Native American Works of Fiction," in American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2, Spring 1997.
Donahue explores the role of basketball in Native American culture as depicted in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Reservation Blues.

Hirschfelder, Arlene, and Martha Kreipe de Montano, The Native American Almanac: A Portrait of Native America Today, Prentice Hall General Reference, 1993.
This comprehensive reference book covers topics such as the history of Indian and white relations, contemporary Native American life, treaties, tribal governments, languages, education, religion, sports, and Native Americans in film and video.

McFarland, Ron, "Sherman Alexie," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 206: Twentieth-Century American Western Writers, First Series, edited by Richard H. Cracroft, The Gale Group, 1999, pp. 3-10.
McFarland offers a detailed examination of Alexie's life and works.

Waldman, Carl, Who Was Who in Native American History, Facts on File Publications, 1990.
Alexie often references historical Native American figures. This book provides biographies of significant Indians and non-Indians in Native American history, from early contact until 1900.