On the Rez by Ian Frazier

I was going to open here by saying I'm now, finally, caught up with Ian Frazier's books, but I see he had a new book of humorous essays last year that I managed to miss. And that's great news: who could be unhappy to hear that a writer they like has another book, in a style unlike the one they just read? Not me.

Frazier, as I've said here a few times, has two modes, both very much in the New Yorker tradition. He's both a go-there-and-talk-to-people reporter and a sit-down-and-write-something-goofy writer, semi-alternating the two modes throughout his career. For me, his best book of reportage is Family, from the mid-90s, and the best book of humor is the slightly earlier Coyote V. Acme, mostly for the sublime title piece. But those are only the highest peaks in a mountain range; the rest of his stuff is almost equally good, from Gone to New York to The Cursing Mommy's Book of Days.

On the Rez is a book of reportage - the work of the first Frazier - and a sequel, in a weird way. Frazier had written a book called Great Plains a decade before - published in 1989 - which was a loosely-organized collection of writings about and travels through that part of the US. During the writing of that book, Frazier met Le War Lance, an Oglala Sioux Indian - met him on the street in Manhattan - and the two became friends. So, when Frazier didn't move to Moscow (the one in Russia) [1], he instead moved to Montana for the second time, and ended up close [2] to the Pine Ridge Reservation where Le was born and where he'd moved back to after some legal trouble in New York.

You know, Frazier explains the book from the very first, so I should just quote him:

This book is about Indians, particularly the Oglala Sioux who live on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, in the plains and badlands in the middle of the United States. People want to know what a book is about right up front, I have found. They feel this way even if the book does not yet exist, if it is only planned.

(p.3)

Frazier came to Pine Ridge (which is a large expanse, with multiple towns within it), and the "white" towns and cities surrounding it, multiple times over the next few years - he doesn't give a clear timeline, but this seems to be roughly the mid to late '90s, starting maybe 1994 and ending maybe 1999 - to visit with Le, to meet members of Le's extended family, to poke around and see what was interesting, and to just, I think, gather material for this book. Frazier is clear that he considers Le his friend, but it was the kind of friendship where the two sides bring different things: Le brought his knowledge and experience, of a long complicated life and of Oglala Sioux ways and of the people and communities of Pine Ridge, and Frazier brought money and a working car and a willingness to use both for Le's random errands and to listen to Le's stories, even the ones that don't seem to be actually true.

Anyway, On the Rez is made up, once Frazier actually ups sticks and moves to Missoula - which I should point out is two long chapters in; On the Rez is not a tightly focused book in any way - of roughly one part "so I drove several hundred miles over to the Pine Ridge Reservation and hung around there for a few days, and here's what I saw and was told by people there" and one part "in my reading about Indians, this stuff pops out, so let me go through some interesting history and statistics." Frazier goes back and forth between the two modes quickly and easily, generally giving a section break to mark the change but not always. This is not a book with a strong structure; it's loose and rambling and winding, like a road through badlands.

I probably should mention that Frazier uses the term "Indians" almost exclusively, because the people he met and talked to - pretty much entirely Oglala Sioux - used that term exclusively. Other tribes and groups and societies, then or now, may have different preferred terms.

Frazier is a fancier writer here than he usually is for his books of reportage, engaging in rhetorical flourishes and obvious story-telling techniques. My theory is that listening to a lot of Le's stories over the years wore off on him, and so he was telling the story of this people as close to their style as he could.

Let me give an example, from p.125, after at least twice refusing to describe this town:

I will now describe the town of White Clay, Nebraska. One morning when I had nothing else planned I walked around the town. White Clay, White Clay! Site of so many fistfights, and of shootings and beatings and stabbings! Next-to-last stop of so many cars whose final stop was a crash! Junkyard, dusty setting for sprawled bodies, vortex consuming the Oglala Sioux! Sad name to be coupled with the pretty name of Nebraska! White Clay, White Clay!

That's a high point, but On the Rez switches up its tone and style a lot as it goes, from serious retellings of late-19th century battles with the US Army to descriptions of the TV shows that Le and his brothers and cousins would be watching when Frazier arrived, or the endless number of cans of Budweiser they drank.

I don't think this book can be called definitive, and it doesn't aim to be. It's the story of one white guy as much as it is the story of the Oglala Sioux, and, even more so, it's the story of how and why that white guy came to meet a bunch of Oglala Sioux, to respect and care for them, and to want to tell their stories. It's also twenty years old at this point: things can change a lot in a generation. But it is a true book about true people in a true place, told by a master as well as he could. It is thoughtful and well-informed and deep and never settles for easy answers. And it has the story of a real-life hero in it, towards the end...but I'll let you discover that yourself, if you read it.

[1] A lot of the motivation and details behind what Frazier does in On the Rez is left vague, whether because it's not relevant, he doesn't want to explain himself, or some other reason. He's more than just an impersonal reporter, but reticent about his own life as he talks at length about the lives of the people he meets. I suspect a lot of the background is the prosaic "he was a reporter, snooping around for the next thing to write about," which sounds dull and mercenary when the reporter himself talks about it.

[2] This is close in the sense that people in the US West mean it: able to get there in less than a day. It seems to have been four or five hundred miles away, and Frazier's visits were multi-day events involving him staying at a local motel outside the rez.