Green Grass, Running Water
May 13th, 2007by Thomas King
ISBN: 0006485138
King is gutsy: the man has talked at length about (and committed to print) a manifesto of sorts on the power of stories and he’s published fiction. Turns out, his stories are really good, and The Truth About Stories is one of the best books I’ve ever read. He knows what he’s doing.
In this novel he has the Lone Ranger, Hawkeye, Robinson Crusoe, and Ishmael (with some, possibly, er, help from Coyote) on mission to fix up the world. He’s got characters searching to find themselves and each other. There are reservations, borders, traditions, and a prosthetic nose to “help” a man look supposedly more like who he already is. There are powerful women. Mythology is explored. Also, that guy who walks on water shows up.
So do college professors, television salesmen, a lawyer, a wifebeater, a restaurant owner, and a doctor. The police. The missing Indians even show up. Repeatedly. Questions get raised: Who is a sellout, what does that even mean? Where is home, can you go back, and what does it mean if you do? If you don’t? It is a magically twisted world in Green Grass. Water may be everywhere, but the humor is dry. And everyone is trying, over and over again, to get it right this time. Well, nearly everyone.
If you like reading the kind of stories that at first seem effortless, but really seep into your brain and make you think, make you grimace in recognition, and make you want more, you should read this book. Highly recommended.
