Little Big Man

"As usual, my biggest problem was deciding whether I was white or Indian..." When their caravan is ambushed and massacred by the Cheyenne on its way to California in 1852, little Jack Crabb has no choice but to join their tribe. The adoptive parents, Chief Old Tent Skin and his squaw Buffalo Mire, are not above trying to instill in him the worldview of the only Human beings in the tear valley called America. But the identity crisis has already taken its toll on the boy. Jack not only doesn't know, on whose side in the battle over the shape of his country's western border he should stand (and why should he side with anyone at all), but in addition, sweet city ladies and frisky tepee girls cross his path, ...the gunfighters, maniacal warlords, Howling, and a good portion of the dilemmas posed by it, that he was not alone in the snares of time. At the end of a turbulent life, in which he was present at the Battle of Wachita and Custer's debacle at Little Bighorn, he recounts his anti-heroic experiences to the point where the invited reporter's eyes glaze over. Is all this true, or is the septuagenarian pulling us on a boiled noodle? And what do you want from a story that trumps even a spaghetti western? The undersized stature, the clownish antics and the brilliant handling in the film adaptation of the novel (1970) were a perfect fit for Dustin Hoffman. Wish your ears to the little big world, which will put Forrest Gump and Baron Dust in your pocket! "The best and most authentic novel about the bloody colonization of the West. Howgh." - The New York Times. "The frontier era as performed by the old bard who excelled in his ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And without hypocritically correct talk, because a royal clown doesn't have to be a clown." - The Los Angeles Times. "Even Mark Twain would be ashamed of such an eloquent grin." - Henry Miller.