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Craig S. Womack. Drowning in Fire. Tucson. University of Arizona Press. 2001. viii + 296 pages. $35 ($17.95 paper). ISBN 0-81652167-1 (2168-9 paper)
IN THE BILDUNGSROMAN tradition established by Joyce and many others, the young outsider-rebel becomes increasingly alienated from his family and culture, strikes out to find new models, and ends on the verge of discovering a wholly new way of life for himself or, in the past thirty years or so, herself. Writers raised at least partly in other traditions but well trained in the European tradition, like Scott Momaday, Frank Chin, and now Craig Womack, clearly draw upon the bildsungsroman, but they use it with a twist. Their characters are inescapably alienated from...