Survivor's Medicine: Short Stories

By turns hilarious and grim, the 22 stories of this first collection, the 29th entry in the American Indian Literature and Critical Studies series, draw on the author's childhood and youth on an Ojibwa reservation. In ""Oh Wah! Such a Shinob"" (short for Anishanaabe, the Ojibwa name for themselves), a mother bonds with a son while dancing in the kitchen to the sad strains of a Hank Williams record. In ""The Horse Barn and Little Lady Jane,"" a boy loses his first love because of an accident involving horse manure. In another piece, a youth becomes a hero to his peers--but only momentarily--because of a trip to the big city and the acquisition of a ""cheese-head"" hat. And a young man struggles through college and law school so he can free his girlfriend, a prostitute, from prison, where she is serving time on a bum murder rap. A few trite endings or soft-focus characterizations notwithstanding, poet and playwright Two-Rivers (A Dozen Cold Ones by Two Rivers) writes with an eloquence born of self-assurance and authority. One senses that this is one storyteller who knows whereof he speaks. (Oct.)