Ralph Salisbury tells stories of violent conflict and the triumphant will to live, as experienced by Cherokees in contemporary America. The realities of war and its ongoing effects, racial injustice, crime, disharmony between the sexes, and a sense of rootlessness and alienation are balanced by a questing for love, a will to resist both inner and outer evil, and a determination to endure.Salisbury's prose, digressive and complex, is reminiscent of the writing of William Faulkner. His blending reality with dream and fulfillin a story's narrative are in a few brief pages evoke the tales of Jorge Luis Borges. Salisbury challenges the reader with allusive imagery and surprising turns of phrase, yet maintains a down-to-earth language and an ironic, frequently humorous tone.
Grounded in tradition, the Cherokee, often mixed-blood, protagonists of The Last Rattlesnake Throw and Other Stories struggle to maintain harmony in a world full of upheavals and contradictions.
- ISBN10 0806130881
- ISBN13 9780806130880
- Publish Date 1 September 1998
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 2 June 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Oklahoma Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English