Synopses & Reviews
Sherman Alexie is, by many accounts, the most widely read American Indian writer in the United States and likely in the world. A literary polymath, Alexie's nineteen published books span a variety of genres and include his most recent National Book Award-winning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
Now, for the first time, a volume of critical essays is devoted to Alexie's work both in print and on the big screen. Editors Jeff Berglund and Jan Roush have assembled twelve leading scholars of American Indian literature to provide new perspectives on a writer with his finger on the pulse of America.
Interdisciplinary in their approach to Alexie's work, these essays cover the writer's entire career, and are insightful and accessible to scholars and lay readers alike. This volume is a worthy companion to the work of one of our nations's most recognized contemporary voices.
Review
"A gathering of skilled critical essays on the work of one of our generations most valued writers; it is keen and perceptive, and rich in understanding… These essays illuminate the core themes of Williams’s writing—an extraordinary reading of place, superb storytelling, deeply-rooted sense of family, skilled observations as a natural history writer—and will add to the enjoyment of those of us who cherish and respect her writing, as well as to those students for whom her work is a beacon."—Ann Zwinger, author of The Nearsighted Naturalist
Review
"This is an excellent collection of essays which would be of value to scholars interested in ecofeminist writing, nature writing, memoir and autobiography, cancer narratives, and creative writing. It could be used for personal edification as well as pedagogical purposes, and can stand proudly as the first collection of critical essays on the oeurve of Terry Tempest Williams."Rocky Mountain Review
Review
"Richly engaging and provocative."CHOICE
Review
"Moves the terms of scholarly debate in literature and environment forward. The book's lucid, well-argued essays represent a range of sophisticated analysis."ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
Synopsis
Not since Edward Abbey has one writer spoken so passionately about the desert places of the American West as has Terry Tempest Williams. In this first book of criticism to address the work of one of the West’s finest daughters, Katherine Chandler and Melissa Goldthwaite collect the work of sixteen respected scholars who each examine some aspect of courage, wisdom, or place in Williams’s work, in an attempt to "get behind the heart" of her literary vision.
Synopsis
Brings together the work of sixteen respected scholars who examine some aspect of courage, wisdom, or place in Williams’s work, in an attempt to “get behind the heart” of her literary vision
Synopsis
Berglund and Jan Roush have assembled twelve leading scholars of American Indian literature to provide new perspectives on Sherman Alexie—by many accounts, the most widely read American Indian writer in the United States and likely in the world.
About the Author
"The bar is raised. I believe this work will be seen as a role model for literary criticism of Native American fiction, poetry, and film."—Simon Ortiz, poet and professor of English at Arizona State University
Table of Contents
Edited by Jeff Berglund and Jan Roush, eds., Sherman A Collection of Critical Essays
Alexie:
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: “Imagination Turns Every Word into a Bottle
Rocket”: An Introduction to Sherman Alexie
Jeff Berglund
Dancing That Way, Things Began to Change: The Ghost Dance as Pantribal Metaphor in Sherman Alexie’s Writing
Lisa Tatonetti
“Survival = Anger x Imagination”: Sherman Alexie’s Dark Humor
Philip Heldrich
“An Extreme Need to Tell the Truth”: Silence and Language in Sherman Alexie’s “The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire”
Elizabeth Archuleta
Rock and Roll, Redskins, and Blues in Sherman Alexie’s Work
P. Jane Hafen
This Is What It Means to Say Reservation Cinema: Making Cinematic Indians in Smoke Signals
James H. Cox Native Sensibility and the Significance of Women in Smoke Signals
Angelica Lawson
The Distinctive Sonority of Sherman Alexie’s Indigenous Poetics
Susan Berry Brill de Ramírez
The Poetics of Tribalism in Sherman Alexie’s The Summer of Black Widows
Nancy J. Peterson
Sherman Alexie’s Challenge to the Academy’s Teaching of Native American Literature, Non-Native Writers, and Critics
Patrice Hollrah
“Indians Do Not Live in Cities, They Only Reside There”: Captivity and the Urban Wilderness in Indian Killer
Meredith James
Indigenous Liaisons: Sex/Gender Variability, Indianness, and Intimacy in Sherman Alexie’s The Toughest Indian in the World
Stephen F. Evans
Sherman Alexie’s Transformation of “Ten Little Indians”
Margaret O’Shaughnessey
Healing the Soul Wound in Flight and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Jan Johnson
The Business of Writing: Sherman Alexie’s Meditations on Authorship
Jeff Berglund
Contributors
Bibliography
Index