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Books by WSU alumni and friends |
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Angel
of the Gold Rush: A Novel of Early California
By B. J. Scott (’68 Sp.
Comm.)
Kathleen Connelly—Irish immigrant, widowed on
the way to the California gold fields—fought nature
and man to found a far-flung empire built on gold. To
Indians she was a blue-eyed devil who could not die.
To gold miners she was both a fearless adversary who
backed down from no one, and a friend so generous and
fair, she became known as . . . the Angel of the
Gold Rush.
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 Breederman
By Murray Anderson
Morris Publishing. Kearney, Nebraska
Author Murray Anderson weaves his experiences as a
herdsman, milk tester, milking machine salesman, artificial
inseminator, and fieldsman into a novel that describes
the struggle for survival of small farmers in northwest
Washington.
Read
a review from WSM.
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By Sherman Alexie ’94
Kirkus Reviews: A terrific second novel by
the talented young Native American author whose highly
praised fiction (The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight
in Heaven, 1993; Reservation Blues, 1995)
has already moved him on to the short list of the country's
best young writers. . . . It's a rich, panoramic portrayal
of contemporary Seattle that uses the form of the mystery
to tell some uncomfortable home truths about Indian-white
relations, and indeed racism in all its forms. . . .
Both a splendidly constructed and wonderfully readable
thriller—and a haunting, challenging articulation
of the plight and the pride of contemporary Native Americans.
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Donna Rose and the Slug War
By Norma Tadlock Johnson (’49 Home Ec.)
Donna Rose and the Slug War is a rich quilt of small-town Americana, a tale of backyard competition and long-lost secrets—some important enough to kill over. Retired schoolteacher Donna Galbreath isn’t as patient with ignorant people as she once was, but she loves her community of Cedar Harbor, Washington. Cedar Harbor is changing, though, and this is brought home when she finds the body of Lyle Corrigan, the water board chairman, while on an early morning clam-digging foray. After attacks are made on Lyle’s widow and then on Donna, herself, she begins to investigate—along with her neighbor Cyrus, who rescues her and feels that henceforth, protecting Donna has become his duty. The solution requires sorting out the people who had reason to dislike Lyle. In the end, long-held secrets are brought to light and justice is served, along with a peace, of sorts.
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Finding
Caruso
By Kim Barnes ’85
From the publisher: When Buddy and Lee Hope
find themselves orphaned and broke in 1957, the brothers
set off for the logging camps of northern Idaho. Though
seven years apart, the young men are very close—that
is, until Lee, the older of the two, falls hard for
an older woman. But this experienced lover has someone
else in mind: Buddy.
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I
Only Smoke on Thursdays
By Georgie Nickell ’94
iUniverse, Lincoln, Nebraska, 2002
I Only Smoke on Thursdays is the how-to manual
of a single Seattle twenty-something learning to overcome
grief and find someone meaningful amid a sea of duds,
patterned along the same acerbic lines as Bridget
Jones’s Diary.
Read
a review from WSM.
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Index
of Suspicion
By Robert E. Armstrong ’62
iUniverse, Lincoln, Nebraska, 2002
From the publisher: The presidential election
is about to kick off when the front running candidate
is attacked by a raging cat that he encounters inside
his darkened limousine. By curious happenstance Dr.
Duncan MacDonell, the feisty Houston veterinarian, is
the first person on the scene. Things go from bad to
worse, as the election process is disrupted and MacDonell
finds himself the prime target of an intense FBI investigation.
Dr. Mac needs all his diagnostic skills to untangle
the mystery and clear his name.
Read
a review from WSM.
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By Sherman Alexie ’94
From the publisher: A murderer is stalking
and scalping white men in Seattle. While this so-called
Indian Killer terrorizes the city, its Native American
population is thrown into turmoil. John Smith, an Indian
adopted as a newborn baby into a white family, is increasingly
dissatisfied with his life and dreams of the existence
he might have led on the reservation –he is gently
descending into madness. In his search for connection
he meets Marie, a strident young student at the local
university who is isolated from her tribe; she is highly
educated, but not in her own traditions. Marie is particularly
enraged with people such as Jack Wilson, a local ex-cop
and now a popular mystery writer who passes himself
off as part Indian in a desperate attempt at acceptance.
Jack is determined to write about the brutal killings
in his next novel, a novel that he believes will truly
reveal what it is like to be Indian. With each new murder,
the city is gripped by fear, and hate crimes perpetrated
by white men against the Native American community grow
increasingly violent. As the murderer searches for his
latest victim, and the Indian population of Seattle
is filled with a strange combination of fear and relief,
Indian Killer builds to an unexpected and terrifying
climax.
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Into
the Forest
By Jean Hegland ’79
Eva, 18, and Nell, 17, are sisters, adolescents on
the threshold of womanhood—and for them anything
should be possible. But even as Eva prepares for an
audition with the San Francisco Ballet and Nell dreams
of her first semester at Harvard, their lives are turned
upside down and their dreams are pushed into the shadows.
In a nation suddenly without electricity or communications,
Eva is compelled to dance alone to the music of memory,
and Nell's education consists of reading the encyclopedia,
devouring knowledge as if it were her last meal. Theirs
is an age of darkness and terror.
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By Sherman Alexie ’94
From the publisher: A highly acclaimed collection
of short stories by a young Native American writer hailed
by the New York Times as "one of the major
lyric voices of our time." Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur
d'Alene Indian, brilliantly weaves characters, themes,
and language as he evokes the complex density of life
in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation, an existence
filled with pain, anger, and bitterness but also, more
importantly, with forgiveness and resilient hope.
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Prisoners
of Flight
By Sid Gustafson ’77
The Permanent Press, Sag Harbor, 2003
Two ex-military pilots, Gustafson’s protagonist
and his comrade, Henson, crash their plane into wilderness
alongside Montana’s Flathead River. Former Vietnam
POWs, they have wrestled with life’s trials ever
since, holding to a single constant: a fierce longing
for an idealized sky. Says Gustafson’s protagonist:
“The flying rule is: When in doubt, do nothing.
But I’m not flying anymore.” For indeed,
Gustafson's characters are themselves fallen forms of
the angels they seek.
Read
a review from WSM.
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By Sherman Alexie ’94
From the publisher: Winner of the American
Book Award and a critically acclaimed national best
seller, Reservation Blues continues to find
new and adoring readers in academic and popular circles
alike. In 1931, Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul
to the devil, receiving legendary blues skills in return.
He went on to record only twenty-nine songs before being
murdered on August 16, 1938. In 1992, however, Johnson
suddenly reappears on the Spokane Indian Reservation
and meets Thomas Builds-the-Fire, the misfit storyteller
of the Spokane Tribe. When Johnson passes his enchanted
instrument to Thomas—lead singer of the rock-and-roll
band Coyote Springs—a magical odyssey begins that
will take the band from reservation bars to small-town
taverns, from the cement trails of Seattle to the concrete
canyons of Manhattan. Sherman Alexie imaginatively mixes
narrative, newspaper excerpts, songs, journal entries,
visions, radio interviews, and dreams to explore the
effects of Christianity on Native Americans in the late
twentieth century. In addition, he examines the impact
of cultural assimilation on the relationships between
Indian women and Indian men. Reservation Blues
is a painful, humorous, and ultimately redemptive symphony
about God and indifference, faith and alcoholism, family
and hunger, sex and death.
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Shebang
By Valerie Vogrin ’83
Shebang is the rollicking story of an aunt
and her nephew thrown together to fashion a family.
When the matron of an Alabama catering family dies,
Fin Sweetleaf, thirty-ish and single, inherits a business
in disarray and a 16-year-old nephew yearning for normalcy.
These two mismatched orphans, Fin and Hector Sweetleaf,
must form a family in the wake of the domineering matron’s
death. Steeped in the rough mysteries and quirkiness
of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Shebang celebrates
the intricate web of family life—the families
we’re born into, and the families we create out
of necessity.
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Smoke
Signals: A Screenplay
By Sherman Alexie ’94
From the publisher: Set in Arizona, Smoke
Signals is the story of two Native American boys
on a journey. Victor is the stoic, handsome son of an
alcoholic father who has abandoned his family. Thomas
is a gregarious, goofy young man who lost both his parents
in a fire at a very young age. Through storytelling,
Thomas makes every effort to connect with the people
around him: Victor, in contrast, uses his quiet countenance
to gain strength and confidence. When Victor's estranged
father dies, the two men embark on an adventure to Phoenix
to collect the ashes. Along the way, Smoke Signals
illustrates the ties that bind these two very different
young men and embraces the lessons they learn from one
another.
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By Gary L. Bennett ’70
Throughout the history of the human race there have been adventurers who must test the limits of exploration, iconoclasts who will never be satisfied with peace at the expense of ignorance. And ignorance will be dangerous indeed if it is true that the Apollyoni exist. In a Galactic Federation without war, it has been hard to imagine evil, until the expedition to Ahriman ended in such horrible violence that its lone survivor—Coni Sanderson—had to be almost completely reconstructed. For Coni's sake, Greg Sheldon wants more than anything to go beyond the perimeter to search out the truth. Richard Highstreet's father was lost on one of the last major expeditions and he, too, would travel anywhere to find out why. Outstanding courage has made Ben Wilson their commander on a desperate and illegal mission through metaspace, and he knows that if Art Cooke, the fourth crewmember of the Odyssey, knew the real reason for the voyage, he would have stopped it. It will be Ben's job to keep them from destroying each other before they reach their destination, because when that destination is reached, they may have more destruction on their hands than any of them could ever have imagined possible.
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By Sherman Alexie ’94
From the publisher: Sherman Alexie is one
of today's most captivating and popular writers. The
Nation has called him "a master of language,
writing beautifully, unsparingly, and straight to the
heart." Now with Ten Little Indians he
offers nine poignant and emotionally resonant new stories
about Native Americans who, like all Americans, find
themselves at personal and cultural crossroads, faced
with heart-rending, tragic, sometimes wondrous moments
of being that test their loyalties, their capacities,
and their notions of who they are and who they love.
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Till
Hell Freezes Over
By Anne Barton ’57
LTD Books, 2003
Anne Barton—a.k.a. Dr. Florence Barton (’57
Vet. Med.)—takes us on a journey of murder, mystery,
and intrigue with a young veterinarian, Dr. Erica Merrill.
A quick and enjoyable read.
Read
a review from WSM.
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By Sherman Alexie ’94
From the publisher: In these stories we meet
the kind of American Indians we rarely see in literature—the
upper and middle class, the professionals and white-collar
workers, the bureaucrats and poets, falling in and out
of love and wondering if they will make their way home.
A Spokane Indian journalist transplanted from the reservation
to the city picks up a hitchhiker, a Lummi boxer looking
to take on the toughest Indian in the world. A Spokane
son waits for his diabetic father to return from the
hospital, listening to his father's friends argue about
Jesus' carpentry skills as they build a wheelchair ramp.
An estranged interracial couple, separated in the midst
of a traffic accident, rediscover their love for each
other. A white drifter holds up an International House
of Pancakes, demanding a dollar per customer and someone
to love, and emerges with $42 and an overweight Indian
he dubs Salmon Boy.
Sherman Alexie's is a voice of remarkable passion,
and these stories are love stories—between parents
and children, white people and Indians, movie stars
and ordinary people. Witty, tender, and fierce, The
Toughest Indian in the World is a virtuoso performance
by one of the country's finest writers.
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Two
Worlds
By Marietta Barron
Royal Fireworks Press. Unionville, New York, 1999
The account of a pre-teen Mexican-American boy who
challenged the system of school segregation in the California
mining town where he and his family lived.
Read
a review from WSM.
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Windfalls
By Jean Hegland ’79
From the publisher: Windfalls is
a passionate story of motherhood—both tender and
tough—that takes an unflinching look at the many
choices facing every woman. Young and pregnant, Cerise
and Anna make very different decisions about their lives.
While teenage Cerise struggles to support herself and
her young daughter, Anna finishes college, marries,
and later gives birth to two daughters of her own. After
the birth of her second child, a tragic accident tears
Cerise's life apart, and she loses her already tenuous
position in society. As Windfalls progresses,
Cerise and Anna seem destined to approach each other,
their stories dramatically interwoven. When finally
their lives intersect, each woman emerges stronger,
inspired by what she sees in the other, changed by what
she learns.
Read a review from WSM.
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The
Work of Wolves
By Kent Meyers ’80
From the publisher: Even at the tender age
of fourteen, Carson Fielding possessed a preternatural
gift for communicating with horses, as well as for sizing
up the people he meets in his South Dakota reservation
border town. So when Carson buys his first horse—a
run-down, wild-eyed roan—from wealthy rancher
Magnus Yarborough, he quickly develops an instinctive
dislike for the man and his rough manner with people
and animals. Years later, Carson, now a skilled and
respected horseman, is called upon to train Magnus's
herd and teach his wife to ride. The spirited Rebecca
has a natural aptitude for the world of horses, and,
as her lessons progress, she and Carson develop a deep
connection that angers the cruel rancher and sets off
a violent chain of events. Thrown into the drama are
Earl Walks Alone, a young Lakota man trying to study
his way off the reservation and into college, and Willi
Schubert, a German exchange student confronting his
family's troubled history. Though unlike in background,
the characters mirror one another as they struggle with
similar issues of love, cruelty, family, and history
in a world where connections to the past and to the
land speak powerfully about a person's very identity.
Read
a review from WSM.
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