RESERVATION BLUES by Sherman Alexie (Warner...

RESERVATION BLUES by Sherman Alexie (Warner Books: $12.99, 306 pp.). Alexie’s most recent novel continues the misadventures of Thomas Builds-the-Fire, tribal storyteller manque. Alexie uses comic events to illuminate the ongoing tragedy of Native Americans, as Thomas and his friends struggle to survive amid the ruins of a culture ravaged by military conquest, environmental degradation, disease and alcoholism.

Their efforts to form a Native American rock band take them beyond the familiar but confining world of the Spokane reservation, “But the reservation still possessed power and rage, magic and loss, joys and jealousy. The reservation tugged at the lives of its Indians, stole from them in the middle of the night, watched passively as the horses and salmon disappeared. But the reservation forgave, too.”

“Reservation Blues” confirms Alexie’s place among the most talented young writers at work in the U.S.