Thursday, October 19, 8:00 PM

"[King’s] writing is deft, understated, humorous and compassionate. … His wry machinations both comment on a world gone strange and overlay it with a comic sense of justice. The subtleties of structure and layers of substance warrant return visits."

—The San Francisco Chronicle

A finalist for the Governor-General’s Award (the Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), Thomas King has been called "one of the first rank of contemporary Native American writers—a gifted storyteller of universal relevance" (Publishers Weekly). He has published two novels—Medicine River and Green Grass, Running Water—as well as a collection of short stories, One Good Story, That One. His latest novel, Truth and Bright Water, will be published by Grove/Atlantic in October, 2000. An intellectual with a variety of interests, King has edited several volumes related to Native American writing, including The Native in Literature and All My Relations: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Native Fiction. In his lifetime he has worked, among other things, as a hand on a tramp steamer, a shoe salesman, and a photojournalist (an avocation he keeps up, occasionally selling pictures to Newsweek). He presently lives in Ontario, Canada, where he teaches at the University of Guelph and hosts his own national radio show, "The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour."

"Joe Hovaugh settled into the garden on his knees and began pulling at the wet, slippery weeds that had sprung up between the neat rows of beets. He trowelled his way around the zucchini and up and down the lines of carrots, and he did not notice the big Indian at all until he stopped at the tomatoes, sat back, and tried to remember where he had set the ball of twine and wooden stakes.

The big Indian was naked to the waist. His hair was braided and wrapped with white ermine and strips of red cloth. He wore a single feather held in place by a leather band stretched around his head, and, even though his arms were folded tightly across his chest, Joe could see the glitter and flash of silver and turquoise on each finger.

'If you build it, they will come,' said the big Indian.

Joe rolled forward and shielded his eyes from the morning sun.

'If you build it, they will come,' said the big Indian again.

'Christ sakes,' Joe shouted. 'Get the hell out of the corn, will ya!' "

—from "A Seat in the Garden".