A review by sakeriver
War Dances by Sherman Alexie

I had a lot of trouble figuring out exactly what I thought of this book. On the one hand, it was very well written and the poems were consistently interesting to me. On the other hand, the short stories were somewhat... vexing. Most of them are stories about (and from the perspective of) men who are deeply flawed in very male ways, but who are at most only marginally self-aware, and who are often awful, sometimes completely reprehensible. Now, as a critique of masculinity, I think there's some value here, but these men are often rendered with enough detail and complexity that I feel you're invited to empathize with them. I'm not sure exactly what I think of that. Because I do feel like empathy is important, and empathy for a person needn't mean that you condone their bad beliefs or behaviors. But I also found it unpleasant to live in these men's heads, and I wondered at times whether these stories functioned more as critique or apologia. Maybe it's best to have a book that doesn't deliver pat conclusions, and which doesn't fully tip the author's hand about what he believes. But something still felt unsatisfying to me about many parts of this book.