The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

This collection of darkly comic short stories by a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian weaves memory, stark realism, and fantasy to paint a complex portrait of life on and around a Native American reservation. These interlinked tales are filled with passion, affection, and myth, and narrated by characters raised on government cheese and humiliation. Amidst alcohol, car accidents, basketball, and laughter, Alexie depicts the gaps between reservation and urban Indians, men and women, modernity and tradition.