Stories
- "Every Little Hurricane"
- Victor remembers the hardships of his childhood in the Spokane Reservation, particularly on his ninth year's New Year's Eve party at his parents' home.
- "A Drug Called Tradition"
- "Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock"
- Victor reminisces about the few good memories he had of his father before he deserted his family.
- "Crazy Horse Dreams"
- Victor fails to meet a woman's image of the ideal Indian hero.
- "The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn't Flash Red Anymore"
- Victor and Adrian discuss the rise and fall of their reservation basketball heroes and the dreams that they carried for their tribemates.
- "Amusements"
- "This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona"
- After Victor's father has died, Victor travels to Phoenix to collect his father's remains with the help of Thomas Builds-the-Fire. During their journey, Victor learns to his immense surprise that he and Thomas, as different as they are, have actually a lot more in common than he could have imagined.
- "The Fun House"
- "All I Wanted to Do Was Dance"
- "The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire"
- Because of his tendency to tell uncomfortable truths about the doings of the local Bureau of Indian Affairs and corrupt tribesmen, Thomas is brought before a court, where his compulsive story-telling earn him both a ridiculous verdict and the audience he has long sought.
- "Distances"
- This chapter is a utopian outlook on what the Indians would behave like if the white man had been eradicated from their ancient lands by some cataclysm and they would return to their traditions of old.
- "Jesus Christ's Half-Brother Is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation"
- "A Train Is an Order of Occurrence Designed to Lead to Some Result"
- Samuel Builds-the-Fire, Thomas's grandfather, loses his job on his birthday, reminisces about his storytelling past, and finally, consumed by despair, lays his head in the path of an oncoming train.
- "A Good Story"
- "The First Annual All-Indian Horseshoe Pitch and Barbecue"
- "The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor"
- James Many Horses learns he is dying of cancer and reflects on the history of his marriage to his wife, Norma.
- "Indian Education"
- "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven"
- "Family Portrait"
- "Somebody Kept Saying Powwow"
- "Witnesses, Secret and Not"
- "Flight"
- (added in 2003 reissue)
- "Junior Polatkin's Wild West Show"
- (added in 2003 reissue)
Read more about this topic: The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven
Famous quotes containing the word stories:
“Every one of my friends had a bad day somewhere in her history she wished she could forget but couldn’t. A very bad mother day changes you forever. Those were the hardest stories to tell. . . . “I could still see the red imprint of his little bum when I changed his diaper that night. I stared at my hand, as if they were alien parts of myself . . . as if they had betrayed me. From that day on, I never hit him again.””
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)
“Castaway, your time is a flat sea that doesn’t stop,
with no new land to make for and no new stories to swap.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)