Alexie, Sherman : War Dances

Literature Annotations

Genre	Short Story (24 pp.)
Keywords	Acculturation, Cross-Cultural Issues, Deafness, Family Relationships, Father-Son Relationship, Humor and Illness/Disability, Narrative as Method, Native-American Experience, Patient Experience
Summary	I believe the best way to describe this partly autobiographical story is as an illness travelogue. Alexie prepares his reader for a strange journey by making the first stop his discovery of a dead cockroach in his suitcase. This allusion to The Metamorphosis works wonderfully well for the Kafkaesque remainder of the journey. His bodily journey moves from loss of hearing to possible meningioma to his doctor's proclamation that his "brain is beautiful." His existential/psychological/cultural journey, triggered by his bodily suffering, moves in multiple directions: to time spent with his dying father, his own experience with hydrocephalus, his grandfather's death in WWII, and his loving relationships with his children, wife and brother-in-law.
Commentary	This story fits quite nicely within Arthur Frank's conception of the "Chaos Narrative" (see annotation of The Wounded Storyteller). It's also very funny, wonderfully irreverent, and heart-warming to boot.
Source	New Yorker, August 10, 2009
Alternate Source	War Dances
Alternate Publisher	Grove Press
Alternate Edition	2009
Place Published	New York
Miscellaneous	The book, War Dances, won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Annotated by	Kohn, Martin
Date of Entry	09/16/09
Last Revised	03/23/10