Book Group: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, published in 1993 was Sherman Alexie's breakthrough book. Composed of twenty-two interconnected stories with recurring characters, the work is often described by critics as a short-story collection, though some argue that it has novel-like features similar to Louise Erdrich'sLove Medicine. The book's central characters, Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire are two young Native-American men living on the Spokane Indian Reservation, and the stories describe their relationships, desires, and histories with family members and others who live on the reservation. Alexie fuses surreal imagery, flashbacks, dream sequences, diary entries, and extended poetic passages with his storytelling to create tales that resemble prose poems more than conventional narratives.
