While Van Alst's stories are gripping in their unfiltered and unforgiving realism, it is their style that serves as the focal point of the collection. Prose becomes poetry in the way Van Alst renders lines of exposition and dialogue, many having the look and sound of song lyrics.--Douglas Powell, Concho River Review
Description
Growing up in a gang in the city can be dark. Growing up Native American in a gang in Chicago is a whole different story. This book takes a trip through that unexplored part of Indian Country, an intense journey that is full of surprises, shining a light on the interior lives of people whose intellectual and emotional concerns are often overlooked. This dark, compelling, occasionally inappropriate, and often hilarious linked story collection introduces a character who defies all stereotypes about urban life and Indians. He will be in readers’ heads for a long time to come.
Reviews
A masterpiece of Native American literature and of working-class letters in general.--CounterPunch
A masterpiece of Native American literature and of working-class letters in general.--CounterPunch
Making a character like Teddy, who inhabits his world fully and also chafes against the confines of that world's edges, does important, necessary work in pushing against stereotype. By writing with such precision about urban Native and non-Native characters, kids in gangs, kids who grow up to join the Navy and to quote scholars and parse Bible passages, Van Alst delivers an important, thoughtful first book of fiction.--Waxwing
