Sherman Alexie has been acclaimed by Time as "one of the better new novelists, Indian or otherwise," & his books have been compared to those of Richard Wright and James Baldwin in their immense lyric power & revolutionary spirit. In these stories, we meet the kinds of American Indians we rarely see in literature--the upper & middle class, the professionals & white-collar workers, the bureaucrats & poets, falling in & out of love and wondering if they will make their way home.
Alexie's is a voice of remarkable passion, & these stories are love stories--between parents & children, white people & Indians, movie stars & ordinary people. Witty, tender, & fierce, The Toughest Indian in the World is a virtuoso performance by one of the country's finest writers.
"Hard-edged & urban, distinctly individual.... The characters in Alexie's work are not the usual kind of Indians.... They are not tragic victims or noble savages... they listen to Jimi Hendrix & Hank Williams; they dream of being basketball stars.... & unlike most Indians in fiction, they are sometimes funny." (The New York Times)