Ralph Salisbury

Ralph Salisbury is the author of ten books of poetry and numerous books of short fiction.

Indian Who Bombed Berlin and Other Stories, The

Ralph Salisbury

This is a new story collection from a renowned author. Ralph Salisbury's stories are engaging and unique. He has a distinctive approach to assembling the elements of a narrative. The "facts" might be revealed directly, but they are more likely to emerge in small fragments of illumination, like pieces of a dream. The men Salisbury describes have been to war, and being "home" — in the States — is sometimes disorienting for them. Most of them think that they need a woman to help them get their bearings. High school football star Cyrus Littlehorse Jones dreams of slipping silky lingerie off the pale white bodies of
high school cheerleaders. A Korean War veteran joins a Vietnam War protest so that he can score with a "hippie chick."

Salisbury taps primal emotions — love, passion, anger — but he explores his subjects in unusual ways, like drillers who bore at odd angles to discover pools of oil trapped deep in layers of rock. He excavates the hearts and minds
of his characters, mining them to fuel his stories. And his stories are the richer for it — invariably compelling and continually surprising.

CONTENTS
PART ONE
Coming to Manhood: Some Initiations
White Snakes and Red, and Stars, Fallen
Bathsheba's Bath, Bull Durham Bull, and a Bottle of Old Granddad
White Ashes, White Moths, White Stones
A Volga River and a Purple Sea
PART TWO
Some Struggles for Survival in Battle, Some in Bed
Ival the Terrible, the Red Death
Silver Mercedes and Big Blue Buick: An Indian War
The New World Invades the Old
Two Wars, Two Loves, Two Shores, and an Ocean on Fire
Raven Mocker Witches and Refugees
Campfire and Cone of a Pine
Crazy Horse Morris and an Orange Boat
A Farewell on the Way to War
Losers and Winners: An Ongoing Indian War
A Monster Mosquito Seeking Blood
A Way Home
Some Indian Wars, Some Wounds
PART THREE
All in the Family: Some Vanishing American Military Histories
A Vanishing American's First Struggles against Vanishing
Laugh before Breakfast
The Chicken Affliction and a Man of God
Hole Soldiers, Madonna and Child
A Sybarite and One of Columbus's Mistakes
A Handprint in Columbus's Homeland's Dust
A Vanishing American and the War Between the States
Some Killings, One Accidental
The Miracle Killing
PART FOUR
Terrorism and Terrorized
Fractures, a Class Reunion
The Indian Who Bombed Berlin
Between Buses, Between Wars

American Indian Studies Series