Overview
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, this 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 from the Naanabozho Express, the free railroad train he runs on the reservation.Vizenor's work, drawing upon the trickster tradition in Native American culture, is among the most radical in Native American writing today. Academics of all stripes, but particularly anthropologists, champions of victimry, Richard Nixon, and many others come under the lash of Vizenor's satiric tongue in this hilarious, often surreal work.
Synopsis
This satirical tour de force teases readers out of a complacent acceptance of romantic stereotypes.
Publishers Weekly
Almost Browne is perfectly ordinary "in the native sense of natural reason." In other words, Almost (so named because he was born in the back of a car "almost" on his tribe's reservation) is a trickster. In Native American writer Vizenor's (Dead Voices) satiric new novel, Almost takes a job at the UC-Berkeley (Vizenor's own institution), lecturing in the Transethic Situations Department, where his fiercely bawdy commencement address sends both students and faculty into turmoil. In a loosely connected chapter, a wicked parody of the New Age and psychic phone services, he establishes a phone network that offers to put seekers directly in touch with Native healers. As deft as he is funny, the author also slices through "the primal kitsch and great native insights of Jamake Highwater, Lynn Andrews, and the notable Carlos Castaneda." In a flashback (though linear narrative rarely interests Vizenor), Almost is offered the vice presidency by President Nixon if he will orchestrate an Indian invasion to liberate Cuba. This last adventure accounts for the still unexplained 18-minute gap in the Watergate tapes. With wonderful fluency, and with as much passion as humor, Vizenor skewers a nation's mixture of attraction to and repulsion for its indigenous peoples and their willful ignorance about them. Further pop icons are tweaked as Ishmael Reed, Henry Louis Gates, Claude Levi-Strauss and Gloria Steinem, among others, float through the mayhem. Although readers would benefit from a reading of Vizenor's previous work, since intertextuality abounds, there is enough humor and insight here to win over a new and wider audience. This is a fine addition to his already estimable body of work.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Almost Browne is perfectly ordinary "in the native sense of natural reason." In other words, Almost so named because he was born in the back of a car "almost" on his tribe's reservation is a trickster. In Native American writer Vizenor's Dead Voices satiric new novel, Almost takes a job at the UC-Berkeley Vizenor's own institution, lecturing in the Transethic Situations Department, where his fiercely bawdy commencement address sends both students and faculty into turmoil. In a loosely connected chapter, a wicked parody of the New Age and psychic phone services, he establishes a phone network that offers to put seekers directly in touch with Native healers. As deft as he is funny, the author also slices through "the primal kitsch and great native insights of Jamake Highwater, Lynn Andrews, and the notable Carlos Castaneda." In a flashback though linear narrative rarely interests Vizenor, Almost is offered the vice presidency by President Nixon if he will orchestrate an Indian invasion to liberate Cuba. This last adventure accounts for the still unexplained 18-minute gap in the Watergate tapes. With wonderful fluency, and with as much passion as humor, Vizenor skewers a nation's mixture of attraction to and repulsion for its indigenous peoples and their willful ignorance about them. Further pop icons are tweaked as Ishmael Reed, Henry Louis Gates, Claude Levi-Strauss and Gloria Steinem, among others, float through the mayhem. Although readers would benefit from a reading of Vizenor's previous work, since intertextuality abounds, there is enough humor and insight here to win over a new and wider audience. This is a fine addition to his already estimable body of work. MayPublishers Weekly -
Almost Browne is perfectly ordinary "in the native sense of natural reason." In other words, Almost (so named because he was born in the back of a car "almost" on his tribe's reservation) is a trickster. In Native American writer Vizenor's (Dead Voices) satiric new novel, Almost takes a job at the UC-Berkeley (Vizenor's own institution), lecturing in the Transethic Situations Department, where his fiercely bawdy commencement address sends both students and faculty into turmoil. In a loosely connected chapter, a wicked parody of the New Age and psychic phone services, he establishes a phone network that offers to put seekers directly in touch with Native healers. As deft as he is funny, the author also slices through "the primal kitsch and great native insights of Jamake Highwater, Lynn Andrews, and the notable Carlos Castaneda." In a flashback (though linear narrative rarely interests Vizenor), Almost is offered the vice presidency by President Nixon if he will orchestrate an Indian invasion to liberate Cuba. This last adventure accounts for the still unexplained 18-minute gap in the Watergate tapes. With wonderful fluency, and with as much passion as humor, Vizenor skewers a nation's mixture of attraction to and repulsion for its indigenous peoples and their willful ignorance about them. Further pop icons are tweaked as Ishmael Reed, Henry Louis Gates, Claude Levi-Strauss and Gloria Steinem, among others, float through the mayhem. Although readers would benefit from a reading of Vizenor's previous work, since intertextuality abounds, there is enough humor and insight here to win over a new and wider audience. This is a fine addition to his already estimable body of work.From The Critics
"Gerald Vizenor is high among the dozen American writers I read faithfully. His work demonstrates a tremendous ingenuity and fire, a survival through wit and grace. Vizenor is unique in the sense that he does not vaguely remind you of anyone else nor does he share any of the common banal assumptions that disfigure modern letters."Library Journal
Some chapters of this novel began as short stories starring one of noted Native American writer Vizenor's most intriguing charactersAlmost Browneand an assortment of his weird relatives. Almost is a trickster who often appears on college campuses, sponsored by Native American Studies or the Department of Transethnic Situations, but much of his livelihood comes from the sale of blank books, which he autographs as Scott Momaday, Maxine Hong Kingston, or William Shakespeare. One never knows who will show up in Almost Browne's company. Literary greats and historical figures share the page with great-uncle Gesture, who practices acudentistry on a private railroad that services the reservation. The centerpiece of the novel reports on a commencement address delivered by Almosttrickster magic presented to an audience expecting the anthropology of the noble savagewhile Ishmael Reed sits quietly by listening to the O.J. Simpson trial. It's unlikely that Vizenor will attract a large mainstream audience, but his work holds rewards for serious readers.Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati Technical Coll.Kirkus Reviews
In his unique satiric style, at once lyrical and salted with allusion and self-reference, Vizenor (Dead Voices, 1992, etc.) savages academics and lampoons Anglo-Americans generally for their interference with and misperception of Native American reality.Almost Browne, the hero of this endlessly reconfigured comedy, is a man about whom little is certain, except that he was born on the side of the road in the back of a station wagon, almost on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. Fully invested in the trickster tradition as an adult, he wastes no opportunity to confuse those in search of answers, telling "tricky" tales to relatives and anthropologists alike, and flaunting a distinctly native presence in front of those who prefer the assimilationist, "melting pot" notion in culture theory and everyday life. Invited as commencement speaker to the University of California, his talk, which disparages academia, alienates the faculty and students but leaves the joint jumping and alive with questions. Similarly, in a memorable cross-dressing performance, Almost turns on the heat in a native beauty pageant, winning the contest by lip-synching and sashaying his way through Peggy Lee's "Fever"—an intentionally ironic choice given the role of disease in the history of native- white relations. Other members of Almost's family figure plausibly in the tale as well, from his cousin, the narrator, to his great- uncle, Gesture, who runs a free train around the reservation and does the tribe's dental work gratis. The final segment, though, featuring a band of medieval monks who set up a monastery near the tribe, has seemingly little to do with what has come before.
Some loose ends and a fondness for narrative loops are drawbacks, but the novel also draws real strength from its style and wit; those acclimated to Vizenor's eclecticism will find much here to enjoy.