[In the review below, Anderson offers praise for One Good Story, That One.]

It becomes pleasingly clear toward the end of Thomas King's first collection of short fiction [One Good Story, That One] that the title's one good story could be almost any of these 10 deceptively simple but forthright tales.

Drawing on a wealth of Native North American Indian lore and a rich storytelling tradition, as he did in 1990's Medicine River and again in this year's Green Grass, Running Water, King here bears the mark of a talented mimic, ably recreating in "Trap Lines" the resentful lip of a Native teenager who, despite his father's awkward entreaties to go fishing, would rather dangle alone in front of the television; and in "Magpies," the desperate pleas of an aged matriarch who, above all, fears a lonely hospital death.

Such familial backdrops are only half the story, however, as King steals easily into fantastic landscapes inhabited by blue coyote space aliens, singing totem poles, Christopher Columbus, and Adam and Eve. Curiously rhythmic in style, King's odd parables make for an unsettling blend of Christian and Native myths, comedy and tragedy, the everyday and the surreal. Never weighed down with description or details, the stories careen along, propelled so quickly by crisp dialogue and playful wit that one occasionally longs for the ballast of a well-wrought setting or characters who think more than they talk. And although King never obscures his intent—his stories have an arrow's sense of target—he misfires once or twice, too impatient is he to strike home his point.

If the white characters herein are mostly well-meaning country folk, they also come off as misdirected bumpkins—reckless gadabouts who may as well hail from the next galaxy as from Canada or the United States, so far are they from understanding Indians and their culture. To his credit, King stops short of self-righteous finger pointing and concerns himself instead with exploring what it means for Native people to seek their rightful place in a culture that doesn't know quite where to put them.

Told with humour and humility, these tales resonate with the inescapably anguished history of North American Indians. Like the coyote—that sly prankster of Native folklore who lurks close to the heart of King's work—these tales at once trap you in their jaws, tickle with waggish tongue, and howl with ironic wit.