The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is Sherman Alexie's first major collection, published in 1993, and it remains a useful baseline for what the contemporary American short story can do when it stops trying to be respectable. The 22 stories are mostly set on or around the Spokane Reservation, mostly involve a recurring cast of characters (Thomas Builds-the-Fire, Victor, Junior), and mostly hit harder than the page count would suggest.

The stories that became the film Smoke Signals are here ("This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" and "Every Little Hurricane"), and they are even better on the page. The lesser-known ones may be stronger. "The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor" is a piece of stand-up comedy disguised as fiction. "What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" is a road-trip story that I have reread roughly once a year for a decade.

Alexie's prose has the rhythm of an oral storyteller who has heard a lot of bad academic writing and decided to do the opposite of all of it. The collection deserves its reputation. Five stars.