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The business of fancydancing : stories and poems / by Sherman Alexie.

by Alexie, Sherman, 1966-

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Hanging Loose Press, c1992.

Spokane Indians -- Literary collections.

Indians of North America -- Social life and customs -- Fiction.

Indian reservations -- Social conditions -- Fiction.

American poetry -- 20th century

9780914610007 (pbk.)

0914610007 (pbk.)

0914610244 (hc.)

Alternate title:

Fancydancing: stories and poems

Fancy dancing: stories and poems

Distances -- Traveling -- 13/16 -- Distances -- Translated from the American -- Morphine and codeine -- Grandmother -- The Fausto poems -- Sudden death -- Penance -- House fires -- November 22, 1983 -- Love hard -- Transient -- When I die -- Futures -- Dead letter office -- Evolution -- Special delivery -- Evolution -- At Navajo Monument Valley Tribal School -- Artificial respiration -- Powwow -- Independence Day -- Indian boy love songs -- Reservation love song -- Some assembly required -- Lottery -- Crazy horse dreams -- Father coming home -- War all the time -- Misdemeanors -- No drugs or alcohol allowed -- The business of fancydancing -- Heroes -- Missing -- Ceremonies -- Native hero -- Spokane Tribal Celebration, September 1987 -- Eugene Boyd don’t drink here anymore -- The reservation cab driver -- Basketball -- Giving blood -- Pawn shop -- Gravity.

"Sherman Alexie is a preeminent Native American poet, novelist, performer and filmmaker. He has garnered high praise for his poems and short stories of contemporary Native American reservation life, among them The Business of Fancydancing (1992). A Spokane/Coeur d'Alene tribal member, Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife and two sons. In his short-story and poetry collections, Alexie illuminates the despair, poverty, and alcoholism that often shape the lives of Native Americans living on reservations. His poems, novels and short stories evoke sadness and indignation yet also leave readers with a sense of respect and compassion for characters who are in seemingly hopeless situations. Involved with crime, alcohol, or drugs, Alexie’s protagonists struggle to survive the constant battering of their minds, bodies, and spirits by white American society and their own self-hatred and sense of powerlessness. While he depicts the lives of Native Americans who attempt to escape their situation through alcohol and other forms of self-abuse, Alexie's characters also access a mental, emotional, and spiritual outlet, which he refers to as "fancydancing." A key characteristic of Alexie's writing is irony, and his dark humor is often buoyed by an exquisite sense of timing. His poetry collections The Business of Fancydancing and First Indian on the Moon (1993) expose the "fraudulent illusions that tempt us all in America today," noted Andrea-Bess Baxter in Western American Literature. Commenting on The Business of Fancydancing, Alexie's first published poetry collection, Leslie Ullman in the Kenyon Review wrote that the author "weaves a curiously soft-blended tapestry of humor, humility, pride and metaphysical provocation out of the hard realities - the tin-shack lives, the alcohol dreams, the bad luck and burlesque disasters, and the self-destructive courage of his characters." Alexie has also been active in film, writing and directing the adaption of his own book The Business of Fancy-Dancing (2003)."--Information from poetryfoundation.org.

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