SOURCE: A review of Reservation Blues, in The Bloomsbury Review, Vol. 15, No. 4, July-August, 1995, p. 16.

Below, Davis praises the universality of Alexie's literary works.

This first novel by Sherman Alexie [Reservation Blues] comes as close to helping a non-Native American understand the modern Indian experience as any attempt in current literature. The reader closes the book feeling troubled, hurt, hopeful, profoundly thoughtful, and somehow exhausted, as if the quest of the characters had been a personal experience.

Alexie, a 28-year-old Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian raised on the Spokane Indian Reservation, is a powerfully prolific writer whose earlier works have received much attention. The Business of Fancydancing (1992), a collection of poems and stories, was named a New York Times Notable Book for 1992; Alexie is a citation winner for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction and winner of the 1994 Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award.

Reservation Blues chronicles...