I picked up this book because it was highly recommended and I'd read something else I'd liked by Alexie. I'm in disbelief that this book is recommended by anyone. #1 There is a lot of sympathy for characters making poor moral choices (I particularly refer to a chapter about a woman cheating on her husband) and I felt the tone lacked any consideration about how that kind of behavior affects other people. I guess I'm hugely judgemental, but I hate authors/artists who justify immoral and/or selfish behavior because of the person's psychological "needs". In real-life, I think I'm actually a little more understanding and sympathetic, but I think literature and art owes it to readers not to screw with their heads and make them feel justified for their own inclinations towards "not-nice" behavior. Sorry. #2 Pretty much every white guy in the book is portrayed as boring, stupid, a racist, etc. Most American Indian people today are partly white (and often partly black), and many white people really have a teensy bit American Indian (like myself). It seems both vengeful and shortsighted to be nasty to and about white people when they include a lot of nice, decent, non-racist people...who sometimes are related to you. After reading _The Toughest Indian in the World_, I actually refused to read any other Sherman Alexie books because I was afraid I'd get more of the same. A friend recently recommended a newer book, which I might be willing to try.

The stories in this collection are an interesting view of what it can be like to have one foot in Indian country and the other in the white man's world. While this bunch isn't as touching as Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in the Sky, it's still well written and compelling.

"The Toughest Indian in the World" is one of Sherman Alexie's collections of short stories. It comes before his most recent collection ("Ten Little Indians") but before "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" (which features many of the characters who would later appear in Alexie's novel "Reservation Blues"). It is also the first one I read. Unfortunately, I feel like it may not have been the best first choice.

Alexie is a wonderful writer, of whom I am a huge fan. His writings usually revolve around the lives of various Indian ("bow and arrow not dot on the head") characters and their complicated feelings about the reservation they love while being desperate to get away from it. This collection of stories follows a similar theme.

The thing about short stories is they're short. Writers only have a limited amount of time to explain everything and to develop characters. I don't know how other readers feel, but I'm of a mind that I like Alexie better as a novelist because there is more time to get to know his unique characters and understand his (at times) complex plots. I found "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" to be more engaging because different stories clearly refer to the same characters--making them more dimensional.

Back to this collection:

As is true with any talented writer, Alexie does have some gems here. "Saint Junior," "One Good Man," and "South by Southwest" are especial favorites of this reviewer possibly because these stories most resemble the combination of acerbic humor and gravity common to Alexie's novels. To take "Saint Junior" as an example: Alexie examines the relationship between a married couple who met at "Saint Junior" university and continue to choose each other every day. In the story, the husband goes to take his SAT's wearing a traditional dance costume while, later in the story, his wife preserves the tribal tradition of making Salmon mush.

These stories are not passive. If anything, they are visceral. This collection combines elements of magical realism with painfully real moments of sadness and hardship in the lives of Alexie's modern Indian characters.

The main problem I saw with this collection is that it remained distractingly distant. Most protagonists go unnamed, sometimes barely described, which makes it difficult to connect with either the characters or their stories. Worse, the stories alternate between nearly absorbing to disturbingly jarring. "The Sin Eaters" hauntingly presents an apocalyptic world where Indians are put through their own kind of Holocaust. This story is angry and, no doubt, important. But by the end it is too angry and too horrific, so that it became a chore to read the remainder of the book for fear of what other catastrophes it might describe.

Any fan of Sherman Alexie's writing will want to read through "The Toughest Indian in the World" to get a better sense of Alexie's work on the whole. That said, readers unfamiliar with Alexie would be better off beginning with one of his novels or perhaps a different story collection.

These are awesome short stories. They have a humanitiy about them that hits the heart. And Alexie is smart and funny too. He's got the whole package. A couple of the stories were a bit too fantasy for me, but that's ok. The rest were fantastic. Reminded me of Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony".

Alexie is a masterful storyteller, delivering an original and strong voice. His characters are not victims, but they're not superstars either; Alexie uses satire to unburden us from his character's racism. Each story tells many stories in order to develop character--from external details to caustic internal psychology. Often, Alexie repeats himself to cement an idea and create through-line. For instance, in "One Good Man," Alexie repeats the question: What is an Indian? and answers it in different ways to develop intimacy with the narrator and help us bridge the relationship with the narrator's dying father--yet always answers a question with a question, as though he is using the technique to discover the answer himself. He ends the story with the same question, but this time answers it for us, as he comes to closure within himself. "What is an Indian? I lifted my father and carried him across every border." Exquisite.