[source: NativeNews; Fri, 07 Jul 2000 18:11:15 -0400] Sherman Alexie's newest book, the toughest indian in the world, is out in hardcover - ask for it at your nearest public library. http://www.fallsapart.com/toughest.html Summary In these stories, we meet the kind of American Indians we rarely see in literature -- the kind who pay their bills, hold down jobs, fall in and out of love. A Spokane Indian journalist transplanted from the reservation to the city picks up a hitchhiker, a Lummi boxer looking to take on the toughest Indian in the world. A diabetic Spokane child waits for his father to return from the hospital; the kid has "nearly normal blood sugar, a bag full of hypodermic needles, and half of his left foot." An estranged interracial couple, separated in the midst of a traffic accident, rediscover their love for each other. A white drifter holds up an International House of Pancakes, demanding a dollar per customer and someone to love, and emerges with $42 and an overweight Indian he dubs Salmon Boy. Sherman Alexie's voice conveys remarkable passion, and these stories are love stories -- between parents and children, white people and Indians, movie stars and ordinary people. Witty, tender, and fierce, The Toughest Indian in the World is a virtuoso performance by one of the country's finest writers.