Alexie, Sherman

The Summer of Black Widows

ISBN: 1882413342
Brooklyn, NY: Hanging Loose Press, 1996. First Softcover Edition. "The spiders appeared suddenly | after that summer rainstorm. | Some people still insist the spiders fell with the rain | while others believe the spiders are from the damp soil like weeds | with eight thin roots. | The elders knew the spiders | carried stories in their stomachs..." (excerpt from title poem, pg. 12). Today we offer The Summer of Black Widows , the award-winning, autobiographical narrative short stories and poems by Sherman Alexie (b. 1966), the great & prolific Native American author & poet. Alexie's poems, fiction, essays and films have won him an international following since his first book, The Business of Fancydancing , was published in 1992. Smoke Signals, the film he adapted from one of his short stories (The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven ; 1993) and co-produced, & starring Native American actor Adam Beach (b. 1972), enlarged his audience still further. The Summer of Black Widows includes some of the most powerful poems in literature about the experience of living on an Indian reservation surrounded by the world its tribe has lost. Consider three examples: a poem about Spokane Falls, That Place Where Ghosts of Salmon Jump, (pg. 19) in which the loss of the salmon to urban and industrial concrete relates to women mourning for children who cannot return home; The Exaggeration of Despair, (pgs. 96-97) a catalogue of horrific cases of social and cultural disintegration; and The Powwow at the End of the World, ( pg. 98) a denunciation of crimes against the environment and against Alexie's tribe which succeeds as a poem even though those who attempt to do this kind of thing usually fail. From the collection of Laurence Goldstein (1943-2023), poet, editor, and professor in the University of Michigan Department of English Language and Literature. Trade-format softcover, first softcover edition though not explicated as such at copyright page, first printing as indicated by number sequence thereon. An indeed "beloved modern classic" in an enriched collectible form, with distinguished provenance. In very fine condition with only a touch of wear at edges & corners of front, back covers & spine; minor age-toning to text block. Interior very fine with minor bumping to edges of page leaves. Very Fine. [Item #7958]

Price: $30.00