I think an original review from the Chicago Tribune may have summed this book up perfectly, "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is for the American Indian what Richard Wright's Native Son was for the black American in 1940."

This is a wonderful group of short stories about live on the reservation for contemporary Indians on the Coeur d'Alene reservation. Victor and Thomas are almost complete opposites. Thomas is always telling stories, and is a huge fan of the oral tradition, whereas Victor just wants to forget the past--especially the fact that his father is an alcoholic.

Many of the stories juxtapose the past and the present, the traditional and the contemporary, the warrior and the broken spirit. There is sadness and there is laughter. There is basketball and there is drugs. There is love and there is hate. all in all, this book is amazing--it never gets old.

This group of stories was also responsible for the creation of the film Smoke Signals--which I also highly recommend for those interested in the novel, film studies, adaptation literature, Adam Beach, etc.