On the rez

by Ian Frazier

"On the Rez, by Ian Frazier, is about modern-day American Indians, especially the storied Oglala Sioux, who live now 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 nineteenth century, and Black Elk, the holy man whose teachings became known around the world, were Oglala; Frazier visits their descendants on Pine Ridge Reservation - "the rez" - now one of America's poorest places. With his longtime friend Le War Lance and other Oglala, Frazier drives around the rez as they visit friends and relatives, go to powwows and rodeos and package stores, and tinker with various falling-apart cars. In the career of SuAnne Big Crow, the most admired Oglala basketball player of all time, who died in a car accident in 1992, Frazier finds a modern reemergence of the Sioux hero who saves her people: and he learns about the ancient and enduring Sioux concept of the hero, in its pulse-quickening, death-defyi