It’s a collection of poems and short stories- some traditional, some in the form of questions and answers.
Very interesting. An absolutely distinct voice of a typical American intellectual totally immersed in contemporary big city life, not missing a beat, yet always conscious of his Spokane Indian ancestry. Intelligent, witty and poignant.
There is a caveat to the rating: some of the stories left me cold, but I absolutely loved some others. Same with the poems. Some didn’t leave a lasting impression on me, but others stayed, and the rating is sort of a mean of this all.
Favourite poem: Theology of Reptiles.
Favourite stories: War Dances and Salt. ( )

This is a collection of short stories and poems linked mainly by the fact that they're about whiny guys. I don't know. I did like a couple of the stories (especially the last one, Salt, and the title story), but the ones that left a bad taste in my mouth really left a bad taste in my mouth and kind of overpower all the rest. The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless was just gross, and I get that he was supposed to be a gross asshat guy, but I don't really need to read a story about a guy who's just wallowing in his assholishness while going "wah, wah, poor me", you know? I could go anywhere on the internet and find a million of them.

Added to that the fact that I'm not a big fan of poetry and these poems didn't do anything to change my mind, and that the writing itself wasn't that great, this was just really not the book for me. I'm glad this wasn't the first thing of his I ever read, otherwise I'd probably write him off and never read anything of his again. ( )

just love Sherman Alexie's writing. I love the ironic humor in his fiction. Much of it is humorous but with a point, often a very blunt point.

War Dances is a collection of short stories and poems. Most of them involve Native American characters. Alexie is a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian. He wrote the screenplay to one of my favorite movies, "Smoke Signals." One of the scenes in that movie has become an inside joke with Sweetie and I, "John Wayne's Teeth." loved this book. I read it in less than 24 hours. ( )

Perspectives on Native American life

In War Dances, his fourth collection (which features a dozen poems along with its 11 stories), National Book Award winner Sherman Alexie enhances his stature as a multitalented writer and an astute observer of life among Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest.

In the title story, a middle-aged Spokane Indian confronts the tension between traditional tribal culture and modern life as he watches over his alcoholic and diabetic father in the hospital while undergoing his own health crisis. “Breaking and Entering” tells the heartbreaking tale of a Native American film editor who commits an act of fatal violence in self-defense and must live with the consequences. And “Salt,” the story that ends the volume, is the moving portrait of teenage boy from the reservation who learns about life and death when he’s called on in his summer job at the local newspaper to write the obituary of the paper’s obituary editor.

Not all of the stories feature Native-American protagonists. “The Senator’s Son” is a modern morality play, as the son of United States senator is involved in an incident of violence against a gay friend, in the process exposing his father’s expedient ethical judgment. In “The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless,” the narrator is a seller of vintage clothes, a lover of pop music and a serial philanderer, “a small and lonely man made smaller and lonelier by my unspoken fears,” a status he shares with several of Alexie’s male characters in this edgy and frequently surprising collection.

Copyright 2009 ProMotion, Inc. ( )

I heart Sherman Alexie. Not his strongest work, but still pretty damn good. ( )