Hotline healers

by Gerald Robert Vizenor

In this collection of eleven linked stories, Gerald Vizenor brings back one of his most popular characters, Almost Browne, in full trickster force. Born in the back of a hatchback, almost on the White Earth Reservation, the crossblood storyteller sells blank books - some autographed (by him) with such names as Isaac Singer, Geoffrey Chaucer, N. Scott Momaday, and Jesus Christ; projects laser demons over the reservation; lectures in the Transethnic Situations Department at the University of California; is crowned Indian Princess of the University of Oklahoma by posing as the "mature" senior Penny Birdwind (who majors in native animations and simulations) and delivering a heartstopping, lip-synched rendition of Peggy Lee's "Fever"; and much more. The stories feature many members of the Browne family, including Grandmother Wink, who can drop an insect in flight with a single puff of her poison breath, and great-uncle Gesture, the acudenturist who creates false teeth with tricky smiles fro