Hotline Healers

by Vizenor, Gerald Robert

• ISBN13: 9780819553041
• ISBN10: 0819553042
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-03-01
• Publisher: Wesleyan Univ Pr

Summary

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.

Author Biography

GERALD VIZENOR is Professor of Native American Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. His books published by Wesleyan are Shadow Distance: A Gerald Vizenor Reader (1994), Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance (1993), Landfill Meditation: Crossblood Stories (1991), and The Heirs of Columbus (1991). His second book, Griever: An American Monkey King in China, won the 1988 American Book Award.

Table of Contents

The Browne Barony	1	(2)
1 Teaser of Chance	3	(6)
2 Heirs of Patronia	9	(21)
3 Healer Dealer	30	(19)
4 Fifth Deal	49	(29)
5 Transethnic Commencements	78	(22)
6 Glossolalia Hermits	100	(7)
7 Hotline Healers	107	(17)
8 Body Counts	124	(17)
9 Naanabozho Express	141	(10)
10 Crystal Trickster	151	(8)
11 Headwaters Curiosa	159