Synopses & Reviews
In this darkly comic short story collection, Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation. These twenty-two interlinked tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issue cheese, and yet are filled with passion and affection, myth and dream. There is Victor, who as a nine-year-old crawled between his unconscious parents hoping that the alcohol seeping through their skins might help him sleep, Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who tells his stories long after people stop listening, and Jimmy Many Horses, dying of cancer, who writes letters on stationary that reads "From the Death Bed of Jimmy Many Horses III," even though he actually writes then on his kitchen table. Against a backdrop of alcohol, car accidents, laughter, and basketball, Alexie depicts the distances between Indians and whites, reservation Indians and urban Indians, men and women, and mostly poetically between modern Indians and the traditions of the past.
Synopsis
In this "compelling and impressive collection" (Washington Times), Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, brilliantly paints a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation. These interlinked tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issue cheese, and yet are filled with passion and affection, myth and dream.
-- Written and co-produced by Sherman Alexie and directed by Chris Eyre, Smoke Signals is the first feature film written, directed, and produced by American Indians.
-- Smoke Signals was the winner of two Sundance Film Festival awards and is releasing in June 1998.
About the Author
Sherman Alexie is the author of the novels Reservation Blues and Indian Killer and three collections of poetry. He also wrote the screeplay for the movie Smoke Signals. He lives in Seattle, Washington.