Are Native Americans new age wise men, alcoholic victims, valiant survivors of a Wild West holocaust (as in Ken Burns' recent PBS saga), just plain folk not much different from the rest of us, casino-owning entrepreneurs, sullen separatists?
Sure. And writers too, of course, drawing what Hemingway used to call juice from all those ill-fitting depictions. One of the better new novelists, Indian or otherwise, is Sherman Alexie (Reservation Blues, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven). His latest, Indian Killer (Atlantic Monthly Press; 420 pages; $22), is a murderous urban legend not calculated to calm anyone's racial unease. Rage...
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