Frazier's latest book, On the Rez , which focuses on Indian life on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation, is a different patch of ground altogether. But On the Rez is hardly exhilarating. John woke up, and he and his brother Rex and Le sat on the couch and began to watch a sitcom called Major Dad . RaeDawn pulled a cushion from an armchair onto the floor and began to do somersaults on it. There are also accounts of shootings, stabbings, and many car wrecks.
Alcohol is ever present.
The author describes numerous bars, from Rapid City, S.D., to Brooklyn, that have catered largely to a Native American clientele. In spite of all that, Frazier doesn't want us to think of Native American life as unhappy. SuAnne powered her basketball team, the Pine Ridge Lady Thorpes, to victory in the 1989 state championship and won national recognition as part of USA Today 's all-American roster. But in neither case does Frazier persuade the reader that his heroes merit such extravagant encomiums. In 1992, SuAnne was killed in a car crash, following the sad path traveled by many others in her tribe.