Thomas King's folksy, mournful, darkly funny prose style invites comparison to two great satirists -- Twain and Vonnegut -- but with even less sentimentality and a narrower focus on the plight (and future) of Native North Americans on both sides of the US-Canada border. King coins or appropriates humorous meme-phrases like "Dead Indian / Live Indian / Legal Indian" and "The End of the Trail" as a means of developing his ideas and burning them into your brain. The author's rhythm, humor, and self-deprecating _presence_ throughout rescue this book from being simply a laundry list of atrocities. A good first book for anyone interested in Native American issues.