'I am a white man and never forget it, but I was brought up by the Cheyenne Indians from the age of ten.' So starts the story of Jack Crabb, the 111-year old narrator of Thomas Berger's masterpiece of American fiction. As a "human being", as the Cheyenne called their own, he won the name Little Big Man. He dressed in skins, feasted on dog, loved four wives and saw his people butchered by the horse soldiers of General Custer, the man he had sworn to kill. As a white man, Crabb hunted buffalo, tangled with Wyatt Earp, ...
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'I am a white man and never forget it, but I was brought up by the Cheyenne Indians from the age of ten.' So starts the story of Jack Crabb, the 111-year old narrator of Thomas Berger's masterpiece of American fiction. As a "human being", as the Cheyenne called their own, he won the name Little Big Man. He dressed in skins, feasted on dog, loved four wives and saw his people butchered by the horse soldiers of General Custer, the man he had sworn to kill. As a white man, Crabb hunted buffalo, tangled with Wyatt Earp, cheated Wild Bill Hickok and survived the Battle of Little Bighorn. Part-farcical, part-historical, the picaresque adventures of this witty, wily mythomaniac claimed the Wild West as the stuff of serious literature.
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Add this copy of Little Big Man to cart. $20.29, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 1989 by Dial Press.
Brilliantly written, veering from hysterically funny to intensely sad, but always entertaining. By the time I was through reading it I desperately hoped that Jack Crabb, the protagonist, actually existed, or least someone like him. I've had a dog-eared paperback copy for years, can quote lines in it from heart, and expect I will always have a copy until the Everywhere Spirit calls me home and I ride that rainbow (read the book).
Incidentally the move is a massive disappointment. Don't bother.
Susan Jo G
Aug 14, 2014
Interesting
I saw the movie years ago but had never read the book. I cannot remember the movie well enough to compare but the book was a good read.
James S
Nov 3, 2011
Great American Novel
This novel is one of the great American novels of the 20th century, and it chronicles one of the most interesting periods in all American history: The decimation of the Plains Tribes in the latter half of the 19th century. This book is a must read for any student of literature and the old west.
