Blasphemy

I was excited to see Sherman Alexie had a new book coming out, slightly less excited when I found out it was a collection of short stories. But Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories did not disappoint. For a book of short stories the collection is pretty thick and the range of both length and breadth of the stories vary greatly. And yet there is a theme that holds all the stories together--they are all about identity, most about Native American characters grappling with who they are, were, or fear they will become. Many of the stories have a heaviness to them, thematically speaking. There is a sadness humming quietly in the background of most of the stories, even those sprinkled generously with humor. They're all very readable though, sucking the reader in almost immediately to feel for these characters, for these situations. My two favorite stories in the collection are "Breaking and Entering," a story I would love to discuss but can't without giving anything away and "The Search Engine," a story about a Native American girl who is smitten by a Native American writer and goes searching for him. I'd like to read both stories again sometime, if not the entire collection. He really is that good.