Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

For you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello, and welcome to Bookworm.

I'm Michael Silverblad, and today my guest is Sherman Alexi.

He's the author, most recently, of a new book of short stories called The Toughest Indian in

the World.

It's published by Atlantic Monthly Press.

He's the author as well, among other

works of poetry, of the books of fiction, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, fistfight in heaven,

Reservation Blues, Indian Killer, and now the toughest Indian in the world. He prefers the

word Indian to Native American, claiming that that is a white man's

confection, that term. And he has said that the Lone Ranger Entanto, fistfight in heaven,

is a title that came to him in a dream. And I thought it would be interesting to begin the show

with a description of dreams

that comes from a story, The Sin Eater, in the toughest Indian in the world by my guest, Sherman

Alexey. The Sin Eaters. I dreamed about war on the night before the war began, and though nobody

officially called it a war until years later.

I woke that next morning with the sure knowledge that the war, or whatever they wanted to call it, was about to begin,

and that I would be a soldier in a small shirt.

...