War Dances

by Sherman Alexie Narrated by Sherman Alexie

Overview

National Book Award winner and New York Times best-selling author Sherman Alexie infuses his writing with biting wit and poignant insight. As a 41-year-old man confronts his own mortality in this collection's title story, he recalls his Spokane Indian father's chilling death from alcoholism and diabetes. Another tale features an eccentric salesman pursuing a married woman from airport to airport. And then there's the film editor who sees nothing wrong with altering footage to fit preconceived views-until he becomes the target of media distortion.

Editorial Reviews

Jan Stuart

Alexie's appealing collection of short stories, poems and self-interrogations opens with an attempted murder and closes with an epitaph. Mortality is much on the mind of this puckish writer, who continues to sift common truths through the sieve of his Indian identity, albeit with the alacrity of a man barreling away from his youth.
—The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

From National Book Award–winner Alexie comes a new collection of stories, poems, question and answer sequences, and hybrids of all three and beyond. In a penetrating voice that mixes humor with anger, Alexie pointedly asks, “If it is true that children pay for the sins of their fathers, then is it also true that fathers pay for the sins of their children?” Many of the stories revolve around the complexities of fatherhood; in the title story, the Native American narrator recalls his alcoholic father's death as he confronts his own mortality, and “The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless” is the tale of an eccentric vintage clothing salesman whose sexual attraction to his wife fades following the birth of their children. The collection also contains stirring defenses of artistic integrity; “Fearful Symmetry” is an incisive account of working as a young screenwriter for a Hollywood studio, and the poem “Ode to Mix Tapes” endorses hard work as the key ingredient behind any creation. Alexie unfurls highly expressive language, and while at times his jokes bomb and the characters' anger can feel forced, overall this is a spiritedly provocative array of tragic comedies. (Oct.)

Kirkus Reviews

From prolific Alexie (Face, 2009, etc.), a collection of stories, poems and short works that defy categorization. It's wildly uneven: A few pieces drawn from his experiences as a member of the Spokane tribe rank with the author's best, but much of what surrounds them feels like filler. Of the 23 selections, the longest and best is the 36-page title story. Sixteen chapters, some as short as two paragraphs, connect the dots between a hospitalized father's fatal alcoholism and the nonmalignant brain tumor of his son, a 41-year-old writer accused in one hilarious incident of subjecting another Indian to racist stereotyping. Alexie frequently uses plainspoken language in first-person narratives to deal with ethical ambiguities-"to find a moral center," as he writes in "Breaking and Entering." That tale shows the narrator, a film editor, editing the facts to fit his story, only to feel victimized by the media's editing of an incident that changes his life. Other pieces don't work as well. "The Senator's Son" is a cliche-riddled, credulity-straining parable of forgiveness concerning Republican hypocrisy and violent homophobia. "Fearful Symmetry" teases the reader with a protagonist whose name (Sherwin Polatkin) and description ("a hot young short-story writer and poet and first-time screenwriter") both suggest an authorial stand-in, yet it has nothing more interesting to say about blurring the distinction between memoir and fiction than to ask, "What is lying but a form of storytelling?" "The Ballad of Paul Nothingness" ambitiously attempts to encompass the mysteries of desire, a critique of capitalism and the power of popular music. The latter also provides inspiration for "Ode to MixTapes," the collection's best poem; most of the other verses are slapdash and singsong. The author's considerable talent is only intermittently in evidence here. Author tour to New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Seattle. Agent: Nancy Stauffer/Nancy Stauffer Associates

From the Publisher

“Sherman Alexie is not a finicky writer. He is often messy and in-your-face in a way that can make you laugh (or shudder) when you least expect to. . . . War Dances is Alexie’s fiercely freewheeling collection of stories and poems about the tragicomedies of ordinary lives.”—O, the Oprah Magazine

“Alexie has a wry, subversive sensibility. . . . The structure [in War Dances] is sophisticated yet playful, a subtle way to bring lightness to heavy topics such as senility, bigotry, cancer, and loneliness. . . . A mix tape of a book, with many voices, pieces of different length, shifting rhythms, an evolving story.”—Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times

“Sherman Alexie mixes up comedy and tragedy, shoots it through with tenderness, then delivers with a provocateur’s don’t-give-a-damn flourish. He’s unique, and his new book, War Dances, is another case in point.”—Mary Ann Gwinn, Seattle Times

“Few other contemporary writers seem willing to deal with issues of race, class, and sexuality as explicitly as Alexie . . . [“War Dances” is] a virtuoso performance of wit and pathos, a cultural and familial critique and a son’s quiet, worthless scream against the night as his father expires . . . [that] reminds me of the early 20th Century master of the short form Akutagawa Riyunosuke. . . . Yet again Sherman Alexie has given us a hell of a ride.”—Anthony Swofford, Barnes & Noble.com

“Alexie’s works are piercing yet rueful. He writes odes to anguished pay-phone calls, to boys who would drive through blizzards to see a girl, to couples who need to sit together on airplane flights even though the computer thinks otherwise. . . . [A] marvelous collection.”—Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

“Sherman Alexie is a rare creature in contemporary literature, a writer who can make you laugh as easily as he can make you cry. He’s also frighteningly versatile, as a poet, screenwriter, short story author, and novelist.”—Ben Fulton, The Salt Lake Tribune

“Remarkable . . . Wonderful . . . [Alexie’s] work reveals both the light and dark within native American life. A paradox in his writing is that you can be in the middle of delighted laughter when he will hit you with a sentence so true to the core of a character’s pain that you suck your breath or are startled to realize you are crying.”—Gale Zoe Garnett, The Globe and Mail

“War Dances is maybe the most personal book Alexie has ever published, and it’s certainly one of his most readable. The closest thing to a historical precedent for this book is Palm Sunday, Kurt Vonnegut’s wildly entertaining self-described ‘autobiographical collage’ of anecdotes, fiction, reminiscences, and other work. . . . Each piece firmly builds on some part of the other, like the songs on a good mix tape. . . . The asymmetrical collection on display in War Dances works as a supremely gratifying reading experience.”—Paul Constant, The Stranger

“Alexie is a master storyteller whose prose is laced with metaphoric realities of life, mixed with triumph and tragedy. . . . War Dances is vintage Alexie . . . [and] should be savored. . . . Fans will not be disappointed.”—Levi Rickert, The Grand Rapids Press

“May be his best work yet . . . An odd grab bag of images, insights, and loose ends . . . yet each piece asks a similar set of questions: What’s the point of all this? If there is a point, what’s the point of that? And isn’t life really goddamn funny? . . . A book about searching.”—Mike Dumke, Chicago Reader

“Complex . . . Unpredictable . . . Thought-provoking.”—Michelle Peters, Winnipeg Free Press

“Beautiful . . . [Alexie] tells wryly amusing, bittersweet stories. . . . He makes you laugh, he makes you cry. Perfect reasons to read him.”—Frank Zoretich, Albuquerque Journal

“Penetrating . . . Alexie unfurls highly expressive language . . . [in] this spiritedly provocative array of tragic comedies.”—Publishers Weekly

“Encounter [Alexie’s work] once and you’ll never forget it.”—Library Journal

“Alexie is at his best in this collection of hilarious and touching stories.”—Geeta Sharma-Jensen, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“[With War Dances], Sherman Alexie enhances his stature as a multitalented writer and an astute observer of life among Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest. . . . [An] edgy and frequently surprising collection.”—Harvey Freedenberg, Bookpage

Library Journal

National Book Award winner/New York Times best-selling author Alexie's (www.fallsapart.com) collection of stories, poems, and essays portrays a variety of characters dealing with difficult, often bittersweet situations. Alexie himself reads, with passion and sardonic humor. The strongest essays are those influenced by the author's own Native American heritage, especially the parts in which he channels his Spokane Indian father. Includes explicit language (notably, of the f**k variety); recommended for anyone who appreciates quality short fiction and nonfiction. [The Grove Pr. hc, which was published in 2009, won the 2010 PEN Faulkner Award for Fiction; the Grove pb is scheduled to be published in August.—Ed.]—J. Sara Paulk, Fitzgerald-Ben Hill Cty. Lib., GA

FEBRUARY 2010 - AudioFile

In this collection of poetry, short stories, and autobiographical vignettes, Alexie continues to explore his sense of self in relation to the complex history of Native Americans. His intonation evokes the Native American oral tradition, while his prose represents a much deeper mixing of his two polarized cultures. Alexie proves an enjoyable, if limited, narrator. All the character voices are rendered through both his literary point of view and his vocal presentation, making some a bit narrow in substance. Yet his delivery also works well for many pieces since Alexie, or his doppelganger, often serves as the center of a given work. He particularly shines at projecting the extensive emotional range of his works, especially humor. L.E. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170998852
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	01/15/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

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