Book Description
A great writer's journey of exploration in an American
place that is both strange and deeply familiar.
In Ian Frazier's bestselling Great Plains, he described
meeting a man in New York City named Le War Lance, "an
Oglala Sioux Indian from Oglala, South Dakota." In On
the Rez, Frazier returns to the plains and focuses on a place
at their center-the Pine Ridge Reservation in the prairie and
badlands of South Dakota, home of the Oglala Sioux. Frazier
drives around "the rez" with Le War Lance and other
Oglalas as they tell stories, visit relatives, go to powwows
and rodeos and package stores, and try to find parts to fix
one or another of their on-the-verge-of-working cars. On the
Rez considers Indian ideas of freedom and community and
equality that are basic to how we view ourselves. Most of
all, he examines the Indian idea of heroism-its suffering and
its pulse-quickening, public-spirited glory. On the Rez
portrays the survival, through toughness and humor, of a
great people whose culture has shaped our American identity.