SOURCE: Levi, Jonathan. “Nothing But Net.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (18 June 2000): 4.

In the following review, Levi explores the diversity of Alexie's American-Indian characters in The Toughest Indian in the World.

“What is an Indian?” Sherman Alexie asks in his latest collection of stories, The Toughest Indian in the World. Is it the college student of the story “One Good Man,” who boasts of long black hair and skin dark as a pecan? “I'd grown up on my reservation with my tribe. I understood most of the Spokane language, though I'd always spoken it like a Jesuit priest. Hell, I'd been in three car wrecks! And most importantly, every member of the Spokane Tribe of Indians could tell you the exact place and time where I'd lost my virginity.”

What is an Indian? Is it the hitchhiker picked up by the Camry-driving narrator of “The Toughest Indian in...