War Dances [Paperback]

War Dances by Sherman Alexie
Grove Press, 209 pp.

Sherman Alexie is as interesting a person as he is a writer. A few years back I heard him do an interview with national conservative talk show host, and Seattle-based, Michael Medved. Although Alexie declared himself somewhat left on the political spectrum, I found him to be one of the most delightful (and I'm not a guy who uses that word often, but it fits) interviews I've ever heard. While so many folks, on both sides can sound downright mean, Alexie is honest, self-deprecating, insightful, and quite funny.

Why did I start this review of War Dances with a review of Alexie's interview prowess? Well, because I found many of the reasons I liked the book are the same reasons I'd liked the interview. While at times I laughed, saddened, and even winced, I was sucked in by every word.

While the stories appear to be "all over the place," you sense there is a common thread running through the stories--and there is. And these are stories that feel so real the fact they're fiction, often feels vice versa. So real. And for me, as a Seattle cop, my day job, it rang incredibly real in one particular story.

A father is home alone, in Seattle's Central District, (my beat) working as a freelance film editor. There's a knock at the door at three in the afternoon. Determining that no one of any worth comes to anyone's door at that time of day, he ignores the knock and returns to his work. A minute or two later he hears a window break, and confronts a burglar who's broken in. The remainder of the story is fascinating, but I can tell you this specific type of burglary, this M.O., Modus Operandi, is unfortunately way too common in the neighborhood Alexie describes.

The stories in War Dances all have this sense of realism, and are uniquely compelling. The way the book is composed, longer, short stories, are interspersed with poems. I'm probably not the most qualified to judge poetry, but, like with wine, I know what I like. I respond to Alexie's poems like no one else's I read.

Normally when I read poetry I either, roll my eyes, gag, and then determine immediately, it sucks. My alternate determination is ambivalence: I truly don't know if I like it or not. Since poetry is too often associated with the realm of pretense, sometimes I think I'm supposed to like it, like I tried to like Maya Angelou's poem at the last presidential inauguration. I felt I was expected to like it, I've liked some of her other poems, I tried to like it--alas, for me, not!

I'm not sure what it is, but I find most of Alexie's poetry deeply satisfying. I may risk some pretension here myself, but I find it refreshingly honest. It feels as if the poet is truly writing for himself--damn the reader (in a nice way), but this is stuff that feels like it really means something to him, and though he may not care if it means something, or anything, to others, it does mean something to me, and I'd guess it will resonate with you too.

Blending short stories, bits of prose and poems, this new collection by Sherman Alexie is too short a read. The book feels sketchy, as if a sculptor sat down with a sketch pad, and drew exercises intended for later use. But the sketches are no less beautiful for it. Sherman Alexie's voice makes the bitter "I", sweet--well, mostly. The Short story "Ballad of Paul Nonetheless" is like something from the Savage Love podcast--a man stuck in his own lens. Another short story, "War Dances", links fragments reflecting fear, grief, and love --the last few lines are the best--anger, tears and laughter--such economy. "Breaking and Entering" written in staccato--so much so that I could not remember the stories content after the first read, details blurred in the jumbled confusion, I had to read it again. I liked it more the first time around, before digesting the ugly details. "Salt"--beautiful story and out of the bunch feels the most whole. The collection reminds me, `if the guilt doesn't get you, the shame will'. And maybe that is as it should be. If you're already a Sherman Alexie reader, you'll probably enjoy this book. If you've never read his work, I would suggest you start with one of his other books, like The Toughest Indian in the World (short stories) or The Business of fancy dancing (poetry) and read War Dances after you've read all his other adult works.

_War Dances_ is a mixed bag of Alexie's short stories and poetry. There are gems and glimpses of the brilliance that one expects from Alexie: "Fearful Symmetry" about a writer's screenplay that sufferes a death of a thousand cuts as the producer, director and corporate pointy-heads transform art into schlocky, formulaic "entertainment" and "the poem "Another Proclimation" are the strongest pieces. But intermingled are stories and poems that feel as if Alexie phoned them in. The result is an uneven reading.

There is a rhythm to the collection as successive stories and poems are loosely related and connected to each other - a story about a traveling salesman's repeated connections with another traveler ("The Balland of Pual Nonetheless") preceeds the poem "On Airplanes"; the poem "The Theology of Reptiles," introduces the short story "Catechism", about the Coeur 'd Alene and their conversion to Catholcism (and the underlying issues of Native assimilation so common to Alexie's work.) This formula works as each piece is interrelated with the next, a way of preparing the palatte for the next course.

The themes common to Alexie - alienation, guilt, the struggle of identity and wrestling with one's personal (and historic) past are all here, and all have the semi-autobiograhical feel that is indicitive of his earlier work. Fans of Alexie will not be disappointed; he is a great writer. For those who aren't familiar with his work, my recommendation for a first read would be The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. There are nuggets of brilliance in this collection, but it was too uneven to warrant five stars.