by Sherman Alexie (Get the Book)A poet and fiction writer for adults of all ages, National Book Award winner Alexie is a virtuoso of the short story. His first two blazing collections, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993) and The Toughest Indian in the World (2000), established him as an essential American voice. Now, many books later, best-selling Alexie has created a substantial, big-hearted, and potent collection that combines an equal number of new and selected stories to profound effect. In these comfort-zone-destroying tales, including the masterpiece, War Dances, his characters grapple with racism, damaging stereotypes, poverty, alcoholism, diabetes, and the tragic loss of languages and customs. Questions of authenticity and identity abound. In The Search Engine, a Spokane college student tries to understand a poet raised by a white couple who no longer writes because he fears that he isn't Indian enough. In the wrenching Cry, Cry, Cry, two cousins take very different paths toward being tribal, while in Emigration, a man who left the reservation trusts that his daughters will keep their tribe's spirit alive. Alexie writes with arresting perception in praise of marriage, in mockery of hypocrisy, and with concern for endangered truths and imperiled nature. He is mischievously and mordantly funny, scathingly forthright, deeply and universally compassionate, and wholly magnetizing. This is a must-have collection. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: As Alexie's creative adventurousness grows, so, too, does his popular acclaim. Expect his latest to raise the bar still further. --Booklist
