Shane M.

After many years, I've still come to loathe this book as the most singular worst example of classical 19th century American literature which I have to this point ever experienced reading. My feelings of outright ridiculousness for sympathy for a story of this kind haven't wavered since my ancillary days at university as an undergraduate for a bachelor's in English degree which I did not complete and which was never otherwise presented to or conceded upon my person for academic achievement, graduation or completion of studies.

After many years, I've still come to loathe this book as the most singular worst example of classical 19th century American literature which I have to this point ever experienced reading. My feelings of outright ridiculousness for sympathy for a story of this kind haven't wavered since my ancillary days at university as an undergraduate for a bachelor's in English degree which I did not complete and which was never otherwise presented to or conceded upon my person for academic achievement, graduation or completion of studies.

"Some of Tim's Stories" seems exactly that. These are loosely relatable stories with characters concerned with all kinds of issues and situations for the two protagonists, friends, and stars of this book, Mike and Terry. In "Full Moon Birthday" both protagonists receives a surprise full moon in the sky as of Friday the 13th, the date of his birthday, but after a bar altercation where he and his friend are chased into the river, his favorite fishing rod, tackle and ice chest are stolen overnight while he and his friend are asleep in a local cabin in Trinidad, CO. The biggest surprise presented to both protagonists (which neither male can wrap their heads around) is the offhand remark which the waitress in the restaurant makes when she says, "Trinidad is the sex change capital of the world." For both. protagonists, this means that the men who had chased them and then later showed up at the. same restaurant where they were breakfasting ought to have been born women. Wholly reminiscent on the whole of the murder of Michael Shepherd on the Colorado-Wyoming border. A story of similar caliber which was handled much better in terms of its literary development and conclusion was T. Correghessan Boyle's "GREASY LAKE," found in his story collection of the same name.

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"Different Shorelines" (a stream of consciousness vignette told in flashbacks) with cousins Mike. and Terry being drunk at the lake. Mike returns from the lake. It seems Terry has killed someone, so he ends up in prison. Since Terry is "just not there," Mike can only reminisce with his Aunt Julie (nicknamed "Jelly" here) and dog Amos about when and why his twin cousin Terry remains incarcerated.

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In "What's Your Poison?" Mike has taken on a job as a bartender. After three years, he still doesn't intend to quit, because his job description dictates that he give customers "what they are thirsty for,"including the man who swore he saw a U.F.O. outside of town.

This story is the most straightfrward of all of "Some of Tim's Stories," aptly because it suffers from using the "boy, have I got a whopper of a story to tell for you," literary 'trope' which is all too common in both social media, social discourse between others, and literary one–upmanship in the world of both literary workshopping and fiction publishing in the world today.

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"The Girl Who Loved Movies" reads like a character sketch straight from the literary bowels of none other than T. Coraghessan Boyle. Again, the plot is marred because of the all too ubiquitous and familiar "boy meets girl, boy falls in love with and gets girl," only to end with the literary trope of "boy loses girl and then lets her go, not realizing what with whom he had" during their relationship, however brief. It's (you guessed it) "just like in the movies" for THE GIRL WHO LOVED MOVIES. (Don't we all? Isn't that always "just how it is?")

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In the story "Sentenced" the reader finally learns why Mike's cousin Terry lands in prison. With an extra gun in the car and a drug deal gone bad, the final straw that breaks the camel's back is a murder, just like on Peter Falk's "COLUMBO."

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In the story "Jailed" cousin Mike simply falls into a drunken stupor reminiscing about how and why his twin cousin Terry wound up in jail while Mike didn't.

Q: What kind of literary cliche is that? A: An all too common one.

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With the story "The Sweetest Sound" we learn that cousin Mike has become an exact duplicate of his tell–all father.

Easy to. pick up, though. hard to pin down, Sherman Alexie's stories & poems are almost always 'eerily encapsulating with almost anything.' The same goes for the content so readily and heartily offered both with & in this book.

As a despairingly despondent (& not so much a "real" Indian from a "real" reservation) teenager and foster child, the protagonist Zits is the most forthrightingly and frightening honest fictional character I've encountered in quite a while.

A temporal tour-de-force, both inside and outside of time, for both the reader and Zits as the impetus for this narrative.

Another top-notch offering from Alexie, and one grand-slam home-run experience for the reader. While I was reading Junior's story about his escaping the "rez" with his attending the all-white Rearden High School, I laughed and cried simultaneously as Junior reconted his heartwarming and heartfelt adventure(s), coupled with his inner turmoil with the continuing deaths of many and any of his "relations" due to alcoholism both on & off the rez.