On the Rez [Paperback]

Ian Frazier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 4, 2001

On the Rez is a sharp, unflinching account of the modern-day American Indian experience, especially that of the Oglala Sioux, who now live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the plains and badlands of the American West. Crazy Horse, perhaps the greatest Indian war leader of the 1800s, and Black Elk, the holy man whose teachings achieved worldwide renown, were Oglala; in these typically perceptive pages, Frazier seeks out their descendants on Pine Ridge—a/k/a "the rez"—which is one of the poorest places in America today.

Along with his longtime friend Le War Lance (whom he first wrote about in his 1989 bestseller, Great Plains) and other Oglala companions, Frazier fully explores the rez as they visit friends and relatives, go to pow-wows and rodeos and package stores, and tinker with a variety of falling-apart cars. He takes us inside the world of the Sioux as few writers ever have, writing with much wit, compassion, and imagination. In the career of SuAnne Big Crow, for example, the most admired Oglala basketball player of all time, who died in a car accident in 1992, Frazier finds a contemporary reemergence of the death-defying, public-spirited Sioux hero who fights with grace and glory to save her followers.

On the Rez vividly portrays the survival, through toughness and humor, of a great people whose culture has helped to shape the American identity.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Given that the Great Plains long functioned as a stomping ground for the Oglala Sioux, it was inevitable that Ian Frazier would cross paths with them when he wrote his 1989 chronicle of that sublime flatland. But the encounter between the self-confessed "chintzy middle-class white guy" and his Native American counterparts went so swimmingly that Crazy Horse assumed a starring role in the book. Now Frazier continues his cross-cultural romance in On the Rez. This account of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota is as touching, funny, and maniacally digressive as anything he's written. What's more, he manages to avoid most of the politically correct potholes along the way, producing a vivid, ambivalent (i.e., honest) portrait of a community where the very "landscape is dense with stories."

Much of On the Rez revolves around Le War Lance, whom Frazier first met in Great Plains. This yarn-spinning, beer-swilling figure serves the author as a kind of Native American Virgil, introducing him to the hard facts of reservation life. In fact, their friendship, with its accents of deep affection and dependency, anchors the entire narrative and elicits some typically top-drawer prose:

Le's eyes can be merry and flat as a smile button, or deep and glittering with malice or slyness or something he knows and I never will. He is fifty-seven years old. I have seen his hair, which is black streaked with gray, when it was over two feet long and held with beaded ponytail holders a foot or so apart, and I have seen it much shorter, after he had shaved his head in mourning for a friend who had died.

On the Rez delivers a history of the Oglala nation that spotlights our paleface population in some of its most shameful, backstabbing moments, as well as a quick tour through Indian America. The latter, to be honest, seems a little too conscientiously cooked up from primary sources and news clippings. But elsewhere Frazier is in superb form, reporting everything he sees and hears with enviable clarity and promptly pulling the rug out from under himself whenever he seems too omniscient. Few accounts of reservation life have been this comical; even fewer have moved beyond the poverty and pandemic drunk driving to discern actual, theological wickedness on the premises: "At such moments a sense of compound evil--the evil of the human heart, in league with the original darkness of this wild continent--curls around me like shoots of a fast-growing vine." In the hands of many a writer, the previous sentence might resemble a rhetorical firecracker. In Frazier's, it comes off as a statement of fact--which is only one of the reasons why every American, Native or not, should take a look at this sad, splendid, and surprisingly hopeful book. --James Marcus --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

When telling non-Indians that he was writing a book about the American Indian, Frazier (Great Plains, etc.) received a nearly unanimous reaction: that the subject sounds bleak. "Oddly," he says, "it is a word I never heard used by Indians themselves." Frazier builds his narrative--or, more deliberately, unpacks it, since he has no discernable plot, chronology or conclusion--around his 20-year friendship with the Indian Le War Lance and the Oglala Sioux of South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation. Though no "wannabe" or "buckskinner," Frazier emulates and reveres "the self-possessed sense of freedom" that he claims is the Indian contribution to the American character, adopted by the earliest European settlers and preserved in our system of government. Frazier's record of his travels with Le War Lance includes the tolls of alcohol, fights and car wrecks (Le claims to have survived 11 of them) and acknowledges the realities as well as the clich?s of reservation life. But in his rendering, the calamities of American Indian life are outweighed by the pervasiveness and endurance of that same sense of freedom, a feeling that Frazier captures in his style, his organization, his wonderful eye for detail. Probably no book since Evan S. Connell's Son of the Morning Star has so imaginatively evoked the spirit of the American Indian in American life; like Connell's tours of the Little Bighorn battlefield, Frazier's visits to Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee, and to the descendants of Red Cloud and Black Elk, frame a broad meditation on American history, myth and misconception. Funny and sad, but never bleak, his meandering narrative is, in fact, the composite of many voices and many kinds of history. Agent, Andrew Wylie. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (May 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312278594
• ISBN-13: 978-0312278595
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (84 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #244,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ian Frazier is the author of Great Plains, The Fish's Eye, On the Rez, and Family, as well as Coyote v. Acme and Dating Your Mom, all published by FSG. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 79 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful, thoughtful book January 13, 2000

By Andrew Poupart

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I always enjoy Ian Frazier's writing and On the Rez has him at the top of his form. This is a long, ruminative essay, really, on Mr Frazier's relationship with the Oglala Sioux and Le War Lance in particular. Along the way, he highlights some of the sorrowful history of Native Americans since contact with Europeans. By turns this book is informative, funny, tragic, and hopeful.

Mr Frazier makes you care about the people in this book. As he comes to know them better, so do you, the reader. I was sorry when the story stopped, which appears to happen largely because Mr Frazier had to stop writing sooner or later. But I do need to know: what happened to Le War Lance after the last page?

If you are a fan of Ian Frazier, or if you are interested in Native American issues, or history, or just like reading about interesting folks, you'll enjoy this book.

53 of 59 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Let The Title Fool You. January 30, 2000

By taking a rest HALL OF FAME

Format:Paperback

It's true this book has witty remarks, but humor is a very small part of this brilliant work. This book is very difficult to read without being deeply affected by Mr. Frazier's words.

Mr. Frazier accomplishes what I find remarkable. He clearly is a great admirer of the tribes and individual members he writes of, but he also is brutally candid about these people who are his friends. The remarkable part is that you never sense he is judging their behavior, nor is he an apologist. He deftly mixes the history of this Country with a variety of Tribal Nations, and shows you the results. He destroys many misconceptions that exist, and makes very intuitive remarks about the future they may await these people.

If you have not already done so, I believe this book will act as a catalyst to read more about the history of these remarkable people, the opportunities that were lost, the crimes that were committed and are being addressed in Congress right now.

I live in the state that has the largest of the Casinos that many feel are providing all manner of solutions to a variety of tribes. The facts about these Casinos are a far cry from the perceptions that many people hold.

Wounded Knee and The Trail of Tears are not just words that make up titles of books. These places and events, the Presidents that governed at the time, and the President who sanctioned the largest mass execution in this Country's History will, in at least one instance shock you. I say, at least one, as one President's attitude is in keeping with his life-long conduct.

These Peoples were not exterminated, or to use the official Federal Government's word, "Terminated". They survived, and their numbers continue to grow, which alone is astonishing.

Enjoy reading about what a hero/heroine really is? Mr. Frazier brings the story of SuAnne Marie Big Crow to the reader, and when he is finished, you will be emotionally drained. You will be challenged to read the story through to its end. The Author does not discuss this young woman until page 200 of a 279-page book, why? The answer is I don't know, my opinion is, the story was that difficult for him to relate to his readers. The story is powerful enough to have been it's own book, and it some day may be. He introduces the subject as follows "Reader, books are long, and I know that even the faithful reader tires. But I hope a few of you are still with me here. As much as I have wanted to tell anything, I wanted to tell you about SueAnne". The Author need not worry, I would imagine the few who do not complete this book would be small, and if they do cease, they will have denied themselves something very special.

One of the most powerful books I have read.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I don't think Jennifer Nixon read the book.... January 22, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

...this book focuses on the many contemporary problems facing Native Americans on the Pine Ridge rez: alcoholism, suicide, unemployment and apathy, as well as short histories of both Wounded Knee conflicts. Frazier approaches these topics in a non-judgmental way, providing observations rather than solutions. The book happens to read more like a novel at times, rather than a textbook. The chapters centering on SuAnne Big Crow are worth the price of the book alone. Highly recommended!