{"product_id":"9781570039737","title":"Understanding Sherman Alexie","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe first book-length examination of the critically acclaimed contemporary Native American author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this first book-length examination of Native American poet, novelist, filmmaker, and short story writer Sherman Alexie, Daniel Grassian offers a comprehensive look at a writer immersed in traditional Native American, as well as mainstream American, culture. Grassian takes readers through Alexie's career, from his first collections of poetry, \u003ci\u003eThe Business of Fancydancing\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eOld Shirts and New Skins,\u003c\/i\u003e through such novels as \u003ci\u003eReservation Blues\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eIndian Killer,\u003c\/i\u003e to the recent short story collection Ten Little Indians. Grassian suggests that Alexie's oeuvre reflects his primary artistic challenge: how to write about Indians in a predominantly televisual country that distorts and complicates the importance and nature of ethnicity itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing comparisons with such established Native American writers as N. Scott Momaday and James Welch as well as with Generation X peers, Grassian presents Alexie's work as equally informed by Native American culture and generic, mainstream influences. The picture of Alexie that emerges is one of a writer who is fiercely talented, intelligent, witty, and committed to helping readers understand contemporary Native American lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrassian explores Alexie's ability to counteract lingering stereotypes of Native Americans, his challenges to the dominant American history, and his suspicion of the New Age movement. The picture of Alexie that emerges from Grassian's text is one of a writer who is fiercely talented, intelligent, witty, and honest, a writer committed to helping readers understand contemporary Native American lives, even if his work sometimes portrays both Native Americans and non-Natives in an unfavorable light.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of South Carolina Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47035991294192,"sku":"9781570039737","price":21.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781570039737_p0.jpg?v=1763793867","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781570039737","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}