The most obvious precedent is Berger's own Little Big Man. Of course, the title of this sequel reminds us that numerous books and films about the "return" of a hero (1940's The Return of Frank James, for instance) have long been a staple cliche of Hollywood and popular fiction—a tradition to which this novel pays homage, while also parodying. Behind the original Little Big Man and its sequel, however, stands the giant predecessor of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, which was the first significant American novel to deal with the raw energy of everyday American life in a vigorous first person style.

Other obvious precedents include many novels and films about Sitting Bull and the Lakota ranging from the romanticized Buffalo Bill (1944) to such works as Arthur Kopit's play, Indians (1969), and the film it inspired, Buffalo Bill and the Indians; Or Sitting Bull's History Lesson...