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Little Big Man #1
Little Big Man: A Novel
“The truth is always made up of little particulars which sound ridiculous when repeated.” So says Jack Crabb, the 111-year-old narrator of Thomas Berger’s 1964 masterpiece of American fiction, Little Big Man . Berger claimed the Western as serious literature with this savage and epic account of one man’s extraordinary double life.
After surviving the massacre of his pioneer family, ten-year-old Jack is adopted by an Indian chief who nicknames him Little Big Man. As a Cheyenne, he feasts on dog, loves four wives, and sees his people butchered by horse soldiers commanded by General George Armstrong Custer. Later, living as a white man once more, he hunts the buffalo to near-extinction, tangles with Wyatt Earp, cheats Wild Bill Hickok, and fights in the Battle of Little Bighorn alongside Custer himself—a man he’d sworn to kill. Hailed by The Nation as “a seminal event,” Little Big Man is a singular literary achievement that, like its hero, only gets better with age.
Praise for Little Big Man
“An epic such as Mark Twain might have given us.” —Henry Miller
“The very best novel ever about the American West.” — The New York Times Book Review
“Spellbinding . . . [Crabb] surely must be one of the most delightfully absurd fictional fossils ever unearthed.” — Time
“Superb . . . Berger’s success in capturing the points of view and emotional atmosphere of a vanished era is uncanny. His skill in characterization, his narrative power and his somewhat cynical humor are all outstanding.” — The New York Times
After surviving the massacre of his pioneer family, ten-year-old Jack is adopted by an Indian chief who nicknames him Little Big Man. As a Cheyenne, he feasts on dog, loves four wives, and sees his people butchered by horse soldiers commanded by General George Armstrong Custer. Later, living as a white man once more, he hunts the buffalo to near-extinction, tangles with Wyatt Earp, cheats Wild Bill Hickok, and fights in the Battle of Little Bighorn alongside Custer himself—a man he’d sworn to kill. Hailed by The Nation as “a seminal event,” Little Big Man is a singular literary achievement that, like its hero, only gets better with age.
Praise for Little Big Man
“An epic such as Mark Twain might have given us.” —Henry Miller
“The very best novel ever about the American West.” — The New York Times Book Review
“Spellbinding . . . [Crabb] surely must be one of the most delightfully absurd fictional fossils ever unearthed.” — Time
“Superb . . . Berger’s success in capturing the points of view and emotional atmosphere of a vanished era is uncanny. His skill in characterization, his narrative power and his somewhat cynical humor are all outstanding.” — The New York Times
480 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
About the author
Thomas Berger
241 books143 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Thomas Louis Berger was an American novelist, probably best known for his picaresque novel Little Big Man, which was adapted into a film by Arthur Penn. Berger explored and manipulated many genres of fiction throughout his career, including the crime novel, the hard-boiled detective story, science fiction, the utopian novel, plus re-workings of classical mythology, Arthurian legend, and the survival adventure.
Berger's use of humor and his often biting wit led many reviewers to refer to him as a satirist or "comic" novelist, though he rejected that classification.
Thomas Louis Berger was an American novelist, probably best known for his picaresque novel Little Big Man, which was adapted into a film by Arthur Penn. Berger explored and manipulated many genres of fiction throughout his career, including the crime novel, the hard-boiled detective story, science fiction, the utopian novel, plus re-workings of classical mythology, Arthurian legend, and the survival adventure.
Berger's use of humor and his often biting wit led many reviewers to refer to him as a satirist or "comic" novelist, though he rejected that classification.
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November 28, 2020
“The cavalry pounded in among the lodges now, the band still playing out in the open valley where they rested. That music was driving me batty. I belly-flopped behind a tree. I had not yet fired my piece, but not because of delicacy. No, I would have dropped them troopers without mercy had I the wherewithal to do it: they was ravaging my home, had killed two of my women, and because of them my dearest wife and newborn boy lay in uttermost jeopardy. At such a time you see no like betwixt yourself and enemy, be he your brother by blood or usage. But my gun was empty. Around the lodge I kept it unloaded in case them children got to tinkering. The ammunition rested in that pouch under Digging Bear’s body, some fifty yards of galloping cavalry from where I lay…”
- Thomas Berger, Little Big Man
Once upon a time, many, many years ago, people crossed over a land bridge from Asia and populated the North American continent. For years beyond counting, they lived on this continent, spreading out over its vastness, forming into communities, fighting wars, marking out territories, and generally living their lives.
At some point after 1492, they had to contend with new visitors arriving in boats, with guns and buckled hats.
The resulting clash has been defined by many terms, but it was first and foremost a tragedy of clashing cultures, with one culture – the visitors – being quite insistent on domination.
Wars followed, and broken treaties, and shifting alliances, and a steady retreat by the indigenous peoples toward the west, away from the newcomers with the guns and the buckled hats and the insatiable need for more land. In the warfare that attended this displacement, the indigenous peoples – inaptly described as “Indians,” a name that has stuck – often took captives from the white interlopers. While an extension of their traditional modes of warfare – partially to offset high infant mortality and low birthrates – this tactic was unique to the European invaders, and made a commensurately powerful impact on their psyches.
Often, the captives taken by Indians would disappear forever, adopted into the tribe that took them. Every so often, however, a person taken would be returned, either through escape or ransom, and from this experience which – leaving everything else aside – would have been traumatic, sprang a new kind of book: the Captivity Narrative.
Smarter people than I have noted that the Captivity Narrative is America’s first indigenous literary genre. For what it’s worth – not much, I allow – I happen to agree. There’s nothing quite like it, anywhere else. Stories about white men, women, and children taken by the Indians have been told on these shores since long before the United States came into existence. Increase and Cotton Mather often took time off from spreading their particular form of hyper-violent, sexually repressed Puritanism to package these kinds of tales into religious tracts.
Over time, Captivity Narratives have taken many different forms. Sometimes they have a theological message. Other times they’ve been used for propaganda. There are coming-of-age stories (think The Son), vengeance stories (think Hannah Duston or The Searchers), and the occasional white man who finds his true self among the Indians stories (Dances With Wolves).
Thomas Berger’s take on the Captivity Narrative, Little Big Man, certainly beats all. It refuses to be any one thing, which can be both maddening and appealing, all at once.
The thing about Captivity Narratives is that despite being sold as a raw experience, they were often premeditatively formed into a lesson (especially in the hands of the Mathers). They arrived in print with a clean storytelling arc, and explored themes that haunted the settlers who arrived uninvited on these shores. When you read the reminisces of – for instance – Hannah Duston, who was captured by the Abenaki, saw her small child killed before her eyes, and later picked up a tomahawk for payback, you see not only a grim tale of survival, but an obvious pretense for the actions of Europeans.
Berger eschews this completely. To be sure, Little Big Man is a fictional take on the Captivity Narrative. Its conceit is that it is the first-person reminisces of 111 year-old Jack Crabb, who at a young age, became a ward of the Cheyenne. But Berger has no interest in a simple three-act story. This is a shaggy dog, with Jack Crabb a 19th century Forrest Gump who somehow finds himself witnessing the most famous events of the American West: the Battle of the Solomon Fork; the Washita Massacre; and the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Along the way, he scouts for George Custer, irritates Wyatt Earp, and cheats Wild Bill Hickok at cards.
It is well worth your time.
In the novel’s extremely funny Forward, written by the pompous, hopelessly naïve “Man of Letters” Ralph Fielding Snell, Crabb is found in a nursing home and encouraged to relate his story. He does so in an inimitable voice that segues seamlessly between tragedy and farce, comedy and drama.
Jack is ten years-old when he joins the Cheyenne. It is a case of mistaken captivity, which I will not attempt to explain other than to note that it’s one of the cruder farcical aspects of Little Big Man. Over the course of the novel, which begins in the 1850s and ends in 1876, with Custer’s defeat, Jack will leave and return to the Cheyenne several times, though he was “a white man and never forgot it.”
Berger’s treatment of the Cheyenne – through the voice of Crabb – is fascinating. It is a far cry from the monolithic, primitive portrayal of Indians that dominated popular culture before the revisionist period of Vietnam-era America. But at the same time, the Cheyenne are not simply idealized as freedom fighters or proto-environmentalists. Rather, they are treated as a collection of individuals with their own traditions and mores and agency. They are not the bad guys, but Berger trusts you to figure this out on your own, without being condescending.
Berger’s trust in the reader is important, because Crabb’s voice is stripped of piety and political correctness. He is blunt in his criticisms and critiques, of which he has many. In other words, Berger has managed to imbue Crabb with an authentic voice. Crabb sounds like a progressive, open-minded man of the 19th century. This is to say, he is progressive, but relative to his peers (which means that would not fit into our own century).
Long before Philipp Meyer perfected this particular alchemy in The Son, Berger was able to deliver a marvelous critique on America’s westward expansion that is utterly readable, entertaining, and moving. My favorite sections involved Jack and his adopted father, Old Lodge Skins, who knows how to deliver a speech:
Because Little Big Man is anecdotal, it depends on its big set pieces. Its success is its ability to recreate historical events with the Jack Crabb twist. The massacre of Black Kettle’s Cheyenne at the Washita, for instance, is masterful. It begins with Jack suddenly finding himself in a polygamous marriage – a sequence that is subtly played for the obvious laughs. Following that interlude, Jack plunges us into the horror and chaos of a dawn cavalry charge. The two sequences are jarring in exactly the way that life is jarring, without clear demarcation between humor and horror.
Any mention of this novel (published in 1964) must contend with the 1970 film version directed by Arthur Penn and starring Dustin Hoffman. It is a great movie, but it is far broader in its characterizations, especially that of Custer who – in the film – delivers a scenery-masticating monologue even as the Lakota and Cheyenne close in for the kill at the Little Big Horn.
The novel is deeper, richer, and far more rounded. Custer is still a fool verging on being a madman, but Crabb comes to have an odd sort of respect for him. Other historical figures are also given an illuminating light. Berger’s Hickok, for example, is mesmerizing. An accomplished killer who is trapped inside his own reputation, always with his back to a wall, nervous and afraid, warily on the lookout for the next man who’s going to try to kill him. When I ponder the heights that historical fiction can reach, I think of Berger’s Hickock, which takes the facts of this legendary man’s life, and weaves them into a fictional interpretation that resonates like truth.
By all accounts, Little Big Man made a mild splash when it first debuted. Since then, undoubtedly helped by the movie, it has grown in esteem. The American West is the going-place for understanding America. The promise of the western frontier is at the root of all our national myths: independence, freedom, upward mobility. It is also at the heart of our national reality, in which noble ideals have been planted like flowers over the graves of the vanquished. It is no surprise that so many classic works of literature spring from this fertile ground. Little Big Man is certainly a classic. When Berger died this past summer, this was his monument, the first line in his obituary.
Nevertheless, it is a hard book to pin down, but in a good way.
On the one hand, it is obviously an attempt at revisionism, giving the Indians back their voice; putting a human (and often grubby) face on gold-plated legends; and subverting many hoary tropes of the American West, among them, the Captivity Narrative itself.
At the same time, because of the uniqueness – and wit – of Jack Crabb’s perspective, Little Big Man never draws attention to its revisionism. There is some medicine here, but you get to take it with a spoonful of sugar (or a shot of rotgut whiskey). It isn’t preachy in the way that other revisionist works can get preachy. That, of course, makes it a wonderful vessel to deliver important ideas.
Little Big Man’s greatness comes from its ability to recalibrate American history but still remain utterly American. Big and sweeping and full of impossible characters. A Twain-like epic of lies, all told with a grin.
- Thomas Berger, Little Big Man
Once upon a time, many, many years ago, people crossed over a land bridge from Asia and populated the North American continent. For years beyond counting, they lived on this continent, spreading out over its vastness, forming into communities, fighting wars, marking out territories, and generally living their lives.
At some point after 1492, they had to contend with new visitors arriving in boats, with guns and buckled hats.
The resulting clash has been defined by many terms, but it was first and foremost a tragedy of clashing cultures, with one culture – the visitors – being quite insistent on domination.
Wars followed, and broken treaties, and shifting alliances, and a steady retreat by the indigenous peoples toward the west, away from the newcomers with the guns and the buckled hats and the insatiable need for more land. In the warfare that attended this displacement, the indigenous peoples – inaptly described as “Indians,” a name that has stuck – often took captives from the white interlopers. While an extension of their traditional modes of warfare – partially to offset high infant mortality and low birthrates – this tactic was unique to the European invaders, and made a commensurately powerful impact on their psyches.
Often, the captives taken by Indians would disappear forever, adopted into the tribe that took them. Every so often, however, a person taken would be returned, either through escape or ransom, and from this experience which – leaving everything else aside – would have been traumatic, sprang a new kind of book: the Captivity Narrative.
Smarter people than I have noted that the Captivity Narrative is America’s first indigenous literary genre. For what it’s worth – not much, I allow – I happen to agree. There’s nothing quite like it, anywhere else. Stories about white men, women, and children taken by the Indians have been told on these shores since long before the United States came into existence. Increase and Cotton Mather often took time off from spreading their particular form of hyper-violent, sexually repressed Puritanism to package these kinds of tales into religious tracts.
Over time, Captivity Narratives have taken many different forms. Sometimes they have a theological message. Other times they’ve been used for propaganda. There are coming-of-age stories (think The Son), vengeance stories (think Hannah Duston or The Searchers), and the occasional white man who finds his true self among the Indians stories (Dances With Wolves).
Thomas Berger’s take on the Captivity Narrative, Little Big Man, certainly beats all. It refuses to be any one thing, which can be both maddening and appealing, all at once.
The thing about Captivity Narratives is that despite being sold as a raw experience, they were often premeditatively formed into a lesson (especially in the hands of the Mathers). They arrived in print with a clean storytelling arc, and explored themes that haunted the settlers who arrived uninvited on these shores. When you read the reminisces of – for instance – Hannah Duston, who was captured by the Abenaki, saw her small child killed before her eyes, and later picked up a tomahawk for payback, you see not only a grim tale of survival, but an obvious pretense for the actions of Europeans.
Berger eschews this completely. To be sure, Little Big Man is a fictional take on the Captivity Narrative. Its conceit is that it is the first-person reminisces of 111 year-old Jack Crabb, who at a young age, became a ward of the Cheyenne. But Berger has no interest in a simple three-act story. This is a shaggy dog, with Jack Crabb a 19th century Forrest Gump who somehow finds himself witnessing the most famous events of the American West: the Battle of the Solomon Fork; the Washita Massacre; and the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Along the way, he scouts for George Custer, irritates Wyatt Earp, and cheats Wild Bill Hickok at cards.
It is well worth your time.
In the novel’s extremely funny Forward, written by the pompous, hopelessly naïve “Man of Letters” Ralph Fielding Snell, Crabb is found in a nursing home and encouraged to relate his story. He does so in an inimitable voice that segues seamlessly between tragedy and farce, comedy and drama.
Jack is ten years-old when he joins the Cheyenne. It is a case of mistaken captivity, which I will not attempt to explain other than to note that it’s one of the cruder farcical aspects of Little Big Man. Over the course of the novel, which begins in the 1850s and ends in 1876, with Custer’s defeat, Jack will leave and return to the Cheyenne several times, though he was “a white man and never forgot it.”
Berger’s treatment of the Cheyenne – through the voice of Crabb – is fascinating. It is a far cry from the monolithic, primitive portrayal of Indians that dominated popular culture before the revisionist period of Vietnam-era America. But at the same time, the Cheyenne are not simply idealized as freedom fighters or proto-environmentalists. Rather, they are treated as a collection of individuals with their own traditions and mores and agency. They are not the bad guys, but Berger trusts you to figure this out on your own, without being condescending.
Berger’s trust in the reader is important, because Crabb’s voice is stripped of piety and political correctness. He is blunt in his criticisms and critiques, of which he has many. In other words, Berger has managed to imbue Crabb with an authentic voice. Crabb sounds like a progressive, open-minded man of the 19th century. This is to say, he is progressive, but relative to his peers (which means that would not fit into our own century).
Long before Philipp Meyer perfected this particular alchemy in The Son, Berger was able to deliver a marvelous critique on America’s westward expansion that is utterly readable, entertaining, and moving. My favorite sections involved Jack and his adopted father, Old Lodge Skins, who knows how to deliver a speech:
[I]t is finished now, because what more can you do to an enemy but beat him? Were we fighting red man against red man – the way we used to, because that it a man’s profession, and besides it is enjoyable – it would now be the turn of the other side to whip us. We would fight as hard as ever, and perhaps win again, but they would definitely start with an advantage, because that is the right way. There is no permanent winning or losing when things move, as they should, in a circle. For is not life continuous? And though I shall die, shall I not also continue to live in everything that is?
The buffalo eats grass, I eat him, and when I die, the earth eats me and sprouts more grass. Therefore nothing is ever lost, and each thing is everything forever, though all things move.
Because Little Big Man is anecdotal, it depends on its big set pieces. Its success is its ability to recreate historical events with the Jack Crabb twist. The massacre of Black Kettle’s Cheyenne at the Washita, for instance, is masterful. It begins with Jack suddenly finding himself in a polygamous marriage – a sequence that is subtly played for the obvious laughs. Following that interlude, Jack plunges us into the horror and chaos of a dawn cavalry charge. The two sequences are jarring in exactly the way that life is jarring, without clear demarcation between humor and horror.
Any mention of this novel (published in 1964) must contend with the 1970 film version directed by Arthur Penn and starring Dustin Hoffman. It is a great movie, but it is far broader in its characterizations, especially that of Custer who – in the film – delivers a scenery-masticating monologue even as the Lakota and Cheyenne close in for the kill at the Little Big Horn.
The novel is deeper, richer, and far more rounded. Custer is still a fool verging on being a madman, but Crabb comes to have an odd sort of respect for him. Other historical figures are also given an illuminating light. Berger’s Hickok, for example, is mesmerizing. An accomplished killer who is trapped inside his own reputation, always with his back to a wall, nervous and afraid, warily on the lookout for the next man who’s going to try to kill him. When I ponder the heights that historical fiction can reach, I think of Berger’s Hickock, which takes the facts of this legendary man’s life, and weaves them into a fictional interpretation that resonates like truth.
By all accounts, Little Big Man made a mild splash when it first debuted. Since then, undoubtedly helped by the movie, it has grown in esteem. The American West is the going-place for understanding America. The promise of the western frontier is at the root of all our national myths: independence, freedom, upward mobility. It is also at the heart of our national reality, in which noble ideals have been planted like flowers over the graves of the vanquished. It is no surprise that so many classic works of literature spring from this fertile ground. Little Big Man is certainly a classic. When Berger died this past summer, this was his monument, the first line in his obituary.
Nevertheless, it is a hard book to pin down, but in a good way.
On the one hand, it is obviously an attempt at revisionism, giving the Indians back their voice; putting a human (and often grubby) face on gold-plated legends; and subverting many hoary tropes of the American West, among them, the Captivity Narrative itself.
At the same time, because of the uniqueness – and wit – of Jack Crabb’s perspective, Little Big Man never draws attention to its revisionism. There is some medicine here, but you get to take it with a spoonful of sugar (or a shot of rotgut whiskey). It isn’t preachy in the way that other revisionist works can get preachy. That, of course, makes it a wonderful vessel to deliver important ideas.
Little Big Man’s greatness comes from its ability to recalibrate American history but still remain utterly American. Big and sweeping and full of impossible characters. A Twain-like epic of lies, all told with a grin.
November 15, 2022
Jack Crabbs life leaves a lot to be desired, but I'll be dammed if it doesn't sound like a childhood dream of mine. Running off and living with Indians, riding horses, hunting buffalo, battling the Crow, Pawnee, and Comanche. Living in the old west on the fringes of society, playing cards in saloons, gun fights with wild Bill, following the gold rush, and riding with the calvary into battle against the whole Indian nation. sure, you occasionally get shot; sure, you never have enough money or food; sure, your wife and family occasionally get kidnapped by Indians (but you can always find another one if you're the legendary Little Big Man). Jack lived some of the most famous parts of the wild west, and we got to tag along with him and experience it all too.
Great writing, great characters, and a great storyline. Overall, it was a fast and fun read, and I highly enjoyed it.
Great writing, great characters, and a great storyline. Overall, it was a fast and fun read, and I highly enjoyed it.
December 5, 2021
A great, sweeping novel full of major events and impossible characters. Perfect for anyone looking for a few hours escape from these troubled modern times.
April 21, 2018
"Jack Crabb was either the most neglected hero in the history of this country or a liar of insane proportions. In either case, may the Everywhere Spirit have mercy on his soul, and yours, and mine."
- Thomas Berger, Little Big Man
"The truth seems hateful to most everybody."
- Thomas Berger, Little Big Man
I thought I was clever when I told my wife Jack Crabb, aka Little Big Man, was the Zelig of the American West. There is nothing new under the sun I guess. Larry McMurtry said it. Others said it before him. The universe is full of clever little readers.
I grew up reading American Indian captivity narratives. I loved Harold Keith's Komantcia and as soon as I was an adult with money, found and bought every copy I could find. I also adored Speare's The Sign of the Beaver. I moved on reading Thomasa's Soun Tetoken and Naya Nuki. So, I'm not sure why as an adult it took me so long to read Berger's masterpiece Little Big Man. It was funny, irreverant, and spanned the West; incorporating Mormons, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, the Cheyenne and lastly Custer and Little Big Horn.
This book is full of racial chauvinism, but the story is being told by a 111 year-old unreliable narrator, in 1952, relating an unbelieveable story that weaves him into most of the BIG storys of the West between the Civil War and Little Big Horn. Jack In summary, doesn't give a sick pig's piss what you think. Besides, he is cynical about just about every group, tribe, religion, etc. He just habitually hangs with the Cheyenne.
Anyway, not that it matters, but greater writers than me loved this book: see Vine DeLoria, Jr., Sherman Alexie, Larry McMurtry, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison. Anyway, it is low brow, beautiful, sad, and asks a lot of big questions and often leaves the big ones unanswered. It belongs on the shelf next to other "great American novels".
- Thomas Berger, Little Big Man
"The truth seems hateful to most everybody."
- Thomas Berger, Little Big Man
I thought I was clever when I told my wife Jack Crabb, aka Little Big Man, was the Zelig of the American West. There is nothing new under the sun I guess. Larry McMurtry said it. Others said it before him. The universe is full of clever little readers.
I grew up reading American Indian captivity narratives. I loved Harold Keith's Komantcia and as soon as I was an adult with money, found and bought every copy I could find. I also adored Speare's The Sign of the Beaver. I moved on reading Thomasa's Soun Tetoken and Naya Nuki. So, I'm not sure why as an adult it took me so long to read Berger's masterpiece Little Big Man. It was funny, irreverant, and spanned the West; incorporating Mormons, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, the Cheyenne and lastly Custer and Little Big Horn.
This book is full of racial chauvinism, but the story is being told by a 111 year-old unreliable narrator, in 1952, relating an unbelieveable story that weaves him into most of the BIG storys of the West between the Civil War and Little Big Horn. Jack In summary, doesn't give a sick pig's piss what you think. Besides, he is cynical about just about every group, tribe, religion, etc. He just habitually hangs with the Cheyenne.
Anyway, not that it matters, but greater writers than me loved this book: see Vine DeLoria, Jr., Sherman Alexie, Larry McMurtry, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison. Anyway, it is low brow, beautiful, sad, and asks a lot of big questions and often leaves the big ones unanswered. It belongs on the shelf next to other "great American novels".
May 25, 2026
Six Stars.
I heard about this book years ago as an example of masterful writing, so I bought it back then. I'm glad I've finally read it. All the good things I heard about it proved to be true -- masterful narration, the sweeping panorama of the Wild West, the great American novel -- all this and more.
I enjoyed the mastery with which Thomas Berger narrates the story in a colorful voice of Jack Crab, aka The Little Big Man, and the contrast between Jack's narration and the dainty voice of the character who supposedly transcribed his memoirs.
I loved the anti-heroic and anti-pathos tone of the book which nevertheless had lots of underlying heroism and pathos, just by the nature of the story and the period.
A warning: if you prefer to read about how life should be or should have been, don't read this book. It's about how life was and frequently still is -- ugly, messy, gritty, cruel, tragic and often unfair, which makes the instances of humane behavior especially precious. If you'd rather read a story about the Wild West in the second half of the 19th century that doesn't depict animal cruelty, racist and misogynist attitudes, aggressive behaviors, with characters acting and being judged according to modern moral standards, the story where an author always provides readers with the exact guidance on what the correct attitude to the depicted events should be, leaving nothing to the danger of the reader's own interpretation, then avoid this novel -- you will hate it.
Read in 2021.
I heard about this book years ago as an example of masterful writing, so I bought it back then. I'm glad I've finally read it. All the good things I heard about it proved to be true -- masterful narration, the sweeping panorama of the Wild West, the great American novel -- all this and more.
I enjoyed the mastery with which Thomas Berger narrates the story in a colorful voice of Jack Crab, aka The Little Big Man, and the contrast between Jack's narration and the dainty voice of the character who supposedly transcribed his memoirs.
I loved the anti-heroic and anti-pathos tone of the book which nevertheless had lots of underlying heroism and pathos, just by the nature of the story and the period.
A warning: if you prefer to read about how life should be or should have been, don't read this book. It's about how life was and frequently still is -- ugly, messy, gritty, cruel, tragic and often unfair, which makes the instances of humane behavior especially precious. If you'd rather read a story about the Wild West in the second half of the 19th century that doesn't depict animal cruelty, racist and misogynist attitudes, aggressive behaviors, with characters acting and being judged according to modern moral standards, the story where an author always provides readers with the exact guidance on what the correct attitude to the depicted events should be, leaving nothing to the danger of the reader's own interpretation, then avoid this novel -- you will hate it.
Read in 2021.
July 7, 2022
This is one of the best books I have ever read. The movie adaptation was awesome as well.
September 27, 2022
Another case where the movie led me to the book. I very much enjoyed the book. More than the movie.
May 12, 2015
So I, Jack Crabb, was a Cheyenne warrior. Had made my kill with bow and arrow. Been scalped and healed with hocus-pocus. Had an ancient savage who couldn't talk English for my Pa, and a fat brown woman for my Ma, and for a brother a fellow whose face I hardly ever saw for clay or paint. Lived in a skin tent and ate puppy dog. God, it was strange!
Most of us are familiar with Jack's tale from the 1970 film.
Incidentally, the bit about the "liar of insane proportion" is the next to last line in the book.
There is so much to love here, both in the film and in the book. Anyone searching for life's meaning or looking for ways to better treat others need look no further than the wisdom of Old Lodge Skins:
"The Human Beings believe that everything is alive: not only men and animals but also water and earth and stones and also the dead and things from them like this hair. The person from whom this hair came is bald on the Other Side, because I now own this scalp. This is the way things are.
"But white men believe that everything is dead: stones, earth, animals, and people, even their own people. And if, in spite of that, things persist in trying to live, white men will rub them out.
"That," he concludes, "is the difference between white men and Human Beings."
Berger does tend to ramble and I was a bit bored by the parts of the story where Crabb is not with the Cheyenne. Some readers may be disturbed by Crabb's assertion that women find being raped to be "interesting."
This may be one of the rare cases where I enjoyed the film more than the book.
So, I've told you the next to last line in the book, but what's the last line? It's lovely, and not at all spoilery:
. . . may the Everywhere Spirit have mercy on his soul, and yours, and mine.
Most of us are familiar with Jack's tale from the 1970 film.
Incidentally, the bit about the "liar of insane proportion" is the next to last line in the book.
There is so much to love here, both in the film and in the book. Anyone searching for life's meaning or looking for ways to better treat others need look no further than the wisdom of Old Lodge Skins:
"The Human Beings believe that everything is alive: not only men and animals but also water and earth and stones and also the dead and things from them like this hair. The person from whom this hair came is bald on the Other Side, because I now own this scalp. This is the way things are.
"But white men believe that everything is dead: stones, earth, animals, and people, even their own people. And if, in spite of that, things persist in trying to live, white men will rub them out.
"That," he concludes, "is the difference between white men and Human Beings."
Berger does tend to ramble and I was a bit bored by the parts of the story where Crabb is not with the Cheyenne. Some readers may be disturbed by Crabb's assertion that women find being raped to be "interesting."
This may be one of the rare cases where I enjoyed the film more than the book.
So, I've told you the next to last line in the book, but what's the last line? It's lovely, and not at all spoilery:
. . . may the Everywhere Spirit have mercy on his soul, and yours, and mine.
November 9, 2025
5 Stars and a new favorite!
I’m going to step out on a strong, sturdy limb here and say that Little Big Man is an excellent example of American literature. Granted, it is somewhat obscure, having been rated by Goodreads readers 7869 times for a 4.27 rating. This is not the first time I have come across exceptional writing that, for whatever reason, never found the spotlight after being published. There is no shame or embarrassment in stating that this book deserves a place on the same shelf as other great American novels. Authors such as Hemingway, Margaret Mitchell, McMurtry, and even Mark Twain are not superior to Thomas Berger but stand equal.
Jack Crabb is the character Burger creates to tell the story of how two cultures and two different ways of life clash in the 19th century. Crabb (Little Big Man) is a wonderfully complex character who, late in life, at 111 years old, tells the story of his life. His perception is unique in that his life was intimately spent with both sides of the cultural conflict. A conflict that basically destroys one culture.
The story is rich and complex, and Crabb is rough and crude. Not a mixture for political correctness. If you are sensitive to violence, racism, and language, stay away from this one buttercup. If, on the other hand, you can look at the past and accept that bad things occurred that can’t be changed, give this one a try. You may like or dislike it, but I doubt you will regret or forget reading it.
I’m going to step out on a strong, sturdy limb here and say that Little Big Man is an excellent example of American literature. Granted, it is somewhat obscure, having been rated by Goodreads readers 7869 times for a 4.27 rating. This is not the first time I have come across exceptional writing that, for whatever reason, never found the spotlight after being published. There is no shame or embarrassment in stating that this book deserves a place on the same shelf as other great American novels. Authors such as Hemingway, Margaret Mitchell, McMurtry, and even Mark Twain are not superior to Thomas Berger but stand equal.
Jack Crabb is the character Burger creates to tell the story of how two cultures and two different ways of life clash in the 19th century. Crabb (Little Big Man) is a wonderfully complex character who, late in life, at 111 years old, tells the story of his life. His perception is unique in that his life was intimately spent with both sides of the cultural conflict. A conflict that basically destroys one culture.
The story is rich and complex, and Crabb is rough and crude. Not a mixture for political correctness. If you are sensitive to violence, racism, and language, stay away from this one buttercup. If, on the other hand, you can look at the past and accept that bad things occurred that can’t be changed, give this one a try. You may like or dislike it, but I doubt you will regret or forget reading it.
July 11, 2026
[9/10]
And then a lot of people had got sick by now of uppity redskins. It was after all the one-hundredth year since the Declaration of Independence, and they had opened a Centennial Exposition in the city of Philadelphia, featuring a deal of mechanical devices such as a typewriter, telephone, and mimeograph machine; and it did not seem logical for such a country to be defied by a bunch of primitives who had not invented the wheel.
As the country starts on its anniversary of 250 years since its independence, many readers will be inspired to mark the event with a selection of historical novels that capture the essence of the American Dream. I decided to start my own journey with the much delayed** visit to an old people’s home, where an 111 years old man named Jack Crabb has a tall story to tell. One that starts in 1852, when a ten years old boy witnesses the massacre of his family by Cheyennes on the Oregon trail, and leads to the centennial year 1876, when president Grant approves the punishing expedition that led to Custer’s Last Stand.
** (I saw the Dustin Hoffman movie back in the 80s and found no urgency for a repeat performance)
I am glad I have now taken the plunge, because Thomas Berger does a sterling satirical job of challenging those self-evident truths about manifest destinies and the pristine territories waiting to be developed. And because Jack Crabb is a great guide for the reader through these turbulent years that saw at least three gold rushes (California, Colorado, Black Hills), a transcontinental railway, a wholesale massacre of wild life, a civil war and a genocide. He may not be 100% foolproof reliable in his reminiscences, but Jack Crabb is hilarious in his dead pan delivery and in his candid comments about the differences between the civilized whites and the Human Beings, as the native tribes like to refer to themselves.
His life is indeed a roller coaster ride of misadventures and dangerous pursuits, of climbing out of the gutter only to be cast right back, of moving residence between frontier towns to tribal enclosures. Picaresque is a good label to apply to the novel, but I would like to add that what Jack has to say is in general historically accurate, even as his own role in those nation building events might be slightly exaggerated.
“He is himself little in body and he is now a man. But his heart is big. Therefore his name from now on shall be: Little Big Man.”
Young Jack survives the attack on the settlers, and is taken in by the Cheyenne warriors who, plied with drink by Jack’s incautious father, go berserk on the caravan. The next five years the boy spends among the Human Beings were for me the best part, the anchor of the whole story. While Jack never forgets about the color of his skin, he absorbs and he lives by the Cheyenne code of honor and of courage, taught mostly by their leader and his adoptive grandfather Old Lodge Skins.
The portrait of tribal life is rarely laudatory, and there’s no beating about the bush about the squalor, the hunger, the dog meat cuisine, the horse stealing, the scalps and other harsh realities of life on the edge of extinction. For a ten years boy though, this is freedom supreme tinged with common sense rules and a deep sense of belonging, of communion with the natural world, of continuity of traditions and of sheer thrill for mayhem.
A man should keep no secrets from his pony. There are things he does not discuss with his brother, his friend, or his wife, but he and his pony must know everything about each other because they will probably die together and ride the Hanging Road between earth and heaven.
Jack’s survival is well served by his self-preservation instincts, cunning, an admission of his own native cowardice and the oral traditions of the tribe, as told by Old Lodge Skins. After five years, Jack is captured by the US Cavalry and returned to civilization, but his identity and his worldview are forever marked by this initiation ritual among the Human Beings. From now on, as he moves back and forth between town and wilderness, Jack will always cast a critical eye at both as he tries to survive to the best of his abilities.
You might have thought the colonel would be interested in my experiences of five years’ barbarism, but he wasn’t. I wasn’t long in discovering that it is a rare person in the white world who wants to hear what the other fellow says, all the more so when the other fellow really knows what he is talking about.
He starts in Missouri, in the house of a pastor of enormous appetite, married to the most beautiful woman in town. There Jack has to deal with bullying from other kids, with infatuation and disappointment in his new mother, with coloured servants and a discussion of slavery, with the joys of education and the strictures of religion.
The middle section of he novel is filled with adventures and laughter and despair. Too much happens for me to attempt a synopsis, but there is hardly a dull moment for Jack, as he criss-crosses the Western territories from California to Montana, Kansas City to Cheyenne. He will drive mules for the Union Pacific, open a shop in Auraria (Denver) during the Colorado gold rush, reunite with his formidable sister Caroline and with his crooked brother Bill, get married in California to a Swedish girl, have a son born to him, lose everything and becomes an alcoholic, return to Cheyenne just in time for another massacre (Sandy Creek and Washita), swears a blood feud against Custer, befriends Wild Bill Hickok, pairs with a confidence trickster named Allardyce T. Meriweather, cheats at poker, shoots buffalo for skins, meets another relative in a whorehouse, and so on ...
I have so many good quotes from the book that I don’t know where to start or how to keep this review from running away from me. There was definitely laughter as I followed the exploits of Little Big Man, but also bits of life wisdom to keep and a lot of pain and anger for the way the natives of the land had their livelihood, their ancestral lands, their dignity, their very life blood taken away from them in the name of progress.
Here’s a selection of some notable moments in the journey that I tried to save:
“First I thought it was a big gun for the shooting of birds, but then I saw that it scared the birds away before they could fly over it. Next I thought it was a big kettle for cooking soup, but then I saw the white men eating in another place. Fighting Bear looked at this thing and believes it is for making whiskey, because all the white men are drunk every night.” (A Cheyenne describes the Iron Horse)
If you want to really relax sometime, just fall to rock bottom and you’ll be a happy man. Most all troubles come from having standards. (Jack gives in to despair and starts drinking)
“If I had your pecuniary endowments, sonny, I’d buy a set of possibles and ram-bunculate northwards, coming back within six months as a man of means beyond the dreams of algebra.” (a drunkard in Santa Fe has a treasure map for Montana gold to sell)
And the one says: “I recall the late Hank French. He also won from Wild Bill at poker.” (friendly advice about playing poker with a gunslinger)
Indeed, there was at least ten million buffalo in 1871, for that is how many was killed on the southern plains from that year up to ’75. Ten million in five years. (no comment)
Amelia: “Then you are my Uncle Jack!” she says.
“Here now,” says I, “you better get your dress back on.”
I would like to spend a little more time on this meeting with his niece from Salt Lake City: Jack is still a young man, despite his heavy load of traumatic experiences, but I think what drives him, ever since that Cheyenne attack on his parent’s caravan, is the need to belong. He is not naive, he couldn’t be after his years of living by his wits, but he is in his most inner heart not an adventurer but a family man. This is why he spends years searching for his kidnapped wife and kid, this is why he returns again and again to Old Lodge Skins, this is why he accepts Amelia’s story even as he knows she is a tricky one herself.
“Amelia,” I says, “you don’t have to have blood-ties to get a family feeling about a person. I am connected in natural brotherhood to a man who is so low as to drop snake heads in the whiskey he sells, and I don’t give a damn for him if you will pardon the expression. Most of the people I have really cared about in this world, I have elected to the position. I have a belief that a man’s real relatives are scattered throughout the universe, and seldom if ever belong to his immediate kin.”
Of course, this being Jack Crabb, he follows the fine sentiments with a bit of Frontier common-sense: Maybe it is not the worst training for a woman to put in a season as a harlot. Jack is convinced his cousin Amelia will make a fine wife and a powerful advocate for women’s rights.
And here is what being a Human Being means to him: a rejection of the straight lines (as in that railroad that cut the country in half) and the square laws of the whites, their double tongues that see no need to respect a signed treaty with savages or to protect the vulnerable in a conflict:
I knew where the center of the world was. A remarkable feeling, in which time turns in a circle, and he who stands at the core has power over everything that takes the form of line and angle and square.
Jack is not shy about calling out the duplicity and the cruelty of the moving frontier. This is why the novel (and its movie adaptation) have been sometimes called revisionist, especially in the year this book was first published (1964) . I think the author is in fact well balanced in presenting the two points of view, since he doesn’t try to sugar coat the tribal life with romantic notions of the ‘noble savage’ and he doesn’t try to minimize the raids by warrior bands on early settlements. But I think Thomas Berger reserves most of his ire on the deliberate policies of extermination by the US government and in particular on the despicable practices of the 7th Cavalry under Custer, as in attacking defenceless villages in order to capture human shields, women and children, that he will then use to force the warriors into surrender. This is made possible because most of these tribes, and in particular Cheyennes, always travelled with their families and would do anything to save them.
Which brings me to the key moment in the novel, the year 1876 and the Powder River / Yellowstone war. Berger details the root causes of the conflict, the personalities of the players, the road to Little Big Horn, the battle and its aftermath, with Jack Crabb as an eye witness. He explains why the tribes had come out of their reservations, in particular the Sioux from their sacred Black Hills:
It was like the Colorado rush again: progress versus savagery; the Army should go in and wipe out the Indian rather than prohibit fellow whites from making a pile.
He portrays Custer as a harsh disciplinarian and a narcissist with political ambitions and with a dismissive, derogatory attitude towards the fighting spirit of the Indians. Yet, there is something that makes Jack Crabb finally respect him and admire Custer as the embodiment of the warrior spirit and of courage in battle.
Or is it?
This is, in the end, a satirical novel...
Jack Crabb, alias Little Big Man, was 34 years old at the battle of Little Big Horn. He will live a long and eventful life that I think the author tried to describe in a sequel. But for now, he ends the story not on the bloody battlefield, but in the company of his adoptive grandfather, chief Old Lodge Skins, in the center of the known world:
“Come out and fight!” he was shouting. “It is a good day to die!”
Then he started to laugh, for Death was scared of him at that moment and cowered in its teepee.
I kind of envy him for this final stand.
And then a lot of people had got sick by now of uppity redskins. It was after all the one-hundredth year since the Declaration of Independence, and they had opened a Centennial Exposition in the city of Philadelphia, featuring a deal of mechanical devices such as a typewriter, telephone, and mimeograph machine; and it did not seem logical for such a country to be defied by a bunch of primitives who had not invented the wheel.
As the country starts on its anniversary of 250 years since its independence, many readers will be inspired to mark the event with a selection of historical novels that capture the essence of the American Dream. I decided to start my own journey with the much delayed** visit to an old people’s home, where an 111 years old man named Jack Crabb has a tall story to tell. One that starts in 1852, when a ten years old boy witnesses the massacre of his family by Cheyennes on the Oregon trail, and leads to the centennial year 1876, when president Grant approves the punishing expedition that led to Custer’s Last Stand.
** (I saw the Dustin Hoffman movie back in the 80s and found no urgency for a repeat performance)
I am glad I have now taken the plunge, because Thomas Berger does a sterling satirical job of challenging those self-evident truths about manifest destinies and the pristine territories waiting to be developed. And because Jack Crabb is a great guide for the reader through these turbulent years that saw at least three gold rushes (California, Colorado, Black Hills), a transcontinental railway, a wholesale massacre of wild life, a civil war and a genocide. He may not be 100% foolproof reliable in his reminiscences, but Jack Crabb is hilarious in his dead pan delivery and in his candid comments about the differences between the civilized whites and the Human Beings, as the native tribes like to refer to themselves.
His life is indeed a roller coaster ride of misadventures and dangerous pursuits, of climbing out of the gutter only to be cast right back, of moving residence between frontier towns to tribal enclosures. Picaresque is a good label to apply to the novel, but I would like to add that what Jack has to say is in general historically accurate, even as his own role in those nation building events might be slightly exaggerated.
“He is himself little in body and he is now a man. But his heart is big. Therefore his name from now on shall be: Little Big Man.”
Young Jack survives the attack on the settlers, and is taken in by the Cheyenne warriors who, plied with drink by Jack’s incautious father, go berserk on the caravan. The next five years the boy spends among the Human Beings were for me the best part, the anchor of the whole story. While Jack never forgets about the color of his skin, he absorbs and he lives by the Cheyenne code of honor and of courage, taught mostly by their leader and his adoptive grandfather Old Lodge Skins.
The portrait of tribal life is rarely laudatory, and there’s no beating about the bush about the squalor, the hunger, the dog meat cuisine, the horse stealing, the scalps and other harsh realities of life on the edge of extinction. For a ten years boy though, this is freedom supreme tinged with common sense rules and a deep sense of belonging, of communion with the natural world, of continuity of traditions and of sheer thrill for mayhem.
A man should keep no secrets from his pony. There are things he does not discuss with his brother, his friend, or his wife, but he and his pony must know everything about each other because they will probably die together and ride the Hanging Road between earth and heaven.
Jack’s survival is well served by his self-preservation instincts, cunning, an admission of his own native cowardice and the oral traditions of the tribe, as told by Old Lodge Skins. After five years, Jack is captured by the US Cavalry and returned to civilization, but his identity and his worldview are forever marked by this initiation ritual among the Human Beings. From now on, as he moves back and forth between town and wilderness, Jack will always cast a critical eye at both as he tries to survive to the best of his abilities.
You might have thought the colonel would be interested in my experiences of five years’ barbarism, but he wasn’t. I wasn’t long in discovering that it is a rare person in the white world who wants to hear what the other fellow says, all the more so when the other fellow really knows what he is talking about.
He starts in Missouri, in the house of a pastor of enormous appetite, married to the most beautiful woman in town. There Jack has to deal with bullying from other kids, with infatuation and disappointment in his new mother, with coloured servants and a discussion of slavery, with the joys of education and the strictures of religion.
The middle section of he novel is filled with adventures and laughter and despair. Too much happens for me to attempt a synopsis, but there is hardly a dull moment for Jack, as he criss-crosses the Western territories from California to Montana, Kansas City to Cheyenne. He will drive mules for the Union Pacific, open a shop in Auraria (Denver) during the Colorado gold rush, reunite with his formidable sister Caroline and with his crooked brother Bill, get married in California to a Swedish girl, have a son born to him, lose everything and becomes an alcoholic, return to Cheyenne just in time for another massacre (Sandy Creek and Washita), swears a blood feud against Custer, befriends Wild Bill Hickok, pairs with a confidence trickster named Allardyce T. Meriweather, cheats at poker, shoots buffalo for skins, meets another relative in a whorehouse, and so on ...
I have so many good quotes from the book that I don’t know where to start or how to keep this review from running away from me. There was definitely laughter as I followed the exploits of Little Big Man, but also bits of life wisdom to keep and a lot of pain and anger for the way the natives of the land had their livelihood, their ancestral lands, their dignity, their very life blood taken away from them in the name of progress.
Here’s a selection of some notable moments in the journey that I tried to save:
“First I thought it was a big gun for the shooting of birds, but then I saw that it scared the birds away before they could fly over it. Next I thought it was a big kettle for cooking soup, but then I saw the white men eating in another place. Fighting Bear looked at this thing and believes it is for making whiskey, because all the white men are drunk every night.” (A Cheyenne describes the Iron Horse)
If you want to really relax sometime, just fall to rock bottom and you’ll be a happy man. Most all troubles come from having standards. (Jack gives in to despair and starts drinking)
“If I had your pecuniary endowments, sonny, I’d buy a set of possibles and ram-bunculate northwards, coming back within six months as a man of means beyond the dreams of algebra.” (a drunkard in Santa Fe has a treasure map for Montana gold to sell)
And the one says: “I recall the late Hank French. He also won from Wild Bill at poker.” (friendly advice about playing poker with a gunslinger)
Indeed, there was at least ten million buffalo in 1871, for that is how many was killed on the southern plains from that year up to ’75. Ten million in five years. (no comment)
Amelia: “Then you are my Uncle Jack!” she says.
“Here now,” says I, “you better get your dress back on.”
I would like to spend a little more time on this meeting with his niece from Salt Lake City: Jack is still a young man, despite his heavy load of traumatic experiences, but I think what drives him, ever since that Cheyenne attack on his parent’s caravan, is the need to belong. He is not naive, he couldn’t be after his years of living by his wits, but he is in his most inner heart not an adventurer but a family man. This is why he spends years searching for his kidnapped wife and kid, this is why he returns again and again to Old Lodge Skins, this is why he accepts Amelia’s story even as he knows she is a tricky one herself.
“Amelia,” I says, “you don’t have to have blood-ties to get a family feeling about a person. I am connected in natural brotherhood to a man who is so low as to drop snake heads in the whiskey he sells, and I don’t give a damn for him if you will pardon the expression. Most of the people I have really cared about in this world, I have elected to the position. I have a belief that a man’s real relatives are scattered throughout the universe, and seldom if ever belong to his immediate kin.”
Of course, this being Jack Crabb, he follows the fine sentiments with a bit of Frontier common-sense: Maybe it is not the worst training for a woman to put in a season as a harlot. Jack is convinced his cousin Amelia will make a fine wife and a powerful advocate for women’s rights.
And here is what being a Human Being means to him: a rejection of the straight lines (as in that railroad that cut the country in half) and the square laws of the whites, their double tongues that see no need to respect a signed treaty with savages or to protect the vulnerable in a conflict:
I knew where the center of the world was. A remarkable feeling, in which time turns in a circle, and he who stands at the core has power over everything that takes the form of line and angle and square.
Jack is not shy about calling out the duplicity and the cruelty of the moving frontier. This is why the novel (and its movie adaptation) have been sometimes called revisionist, especially in the year this book was first published (1964) . I think the author is in fact well balanced in presenting the two points of view, since he doesn’t try to sugar coat the tribal life with romantic notions of the ‘noble savage’ and he doesn’t try to minimize the raids by warrior bands on early settlements. But I think Thomas Berger reserves most of his ire on the deliberate policies of extermination by the US government and in particular on the despicable practices of the 7th Cavalry under Custer, as in attacking defenceless villages in order to capture human shields, women and children, that he will then use to force the warriors into surrender. This is made possible because most of these tribes, and in particular Cheyennes, always travelled with their families and would do anything to save them.
Which brings me to the key moment in the novel, the year 1876 and the Powder River / Yellowstone war. Berger details the root causes of the conflict, the personalities of the players, the road to Little Big Horn, the battle and its aftermath, with Jack Crabb as an eye witness. He explains why the tribes had come out of their reservations, in particular the Sioux from their sacred Black Hills:
It was like the Colorado rush again: progress versus savagery; the Army should go in and wipe out the Indian rather than prohibit fellow whites from making a pile.
He portrays Custer as a harsh disciplinarian and a narcissist with political ambitions and with a dismissive, derogatory attitude towards the fighting spirit of the Indians. Yet, there is something that makes Jack Crabb finally respect him and admire Custer as the embodiment of the warrior spirit and of courage in battle.
Or is it?
This is, in the end, a satirical novel...
Jack Crabb, alias Little Big Man, was 34 years old at the battle of Little Big Horn. He will live a long and eventful life that I think the author tried to describe in a sequel. But for now, he ends the story not on the bloody battlefield, but in the company of his adoptive grandfather, chief Old Lodge Skins, in the center of the known world:
“Come out and fight!” he was shouting. “It is a good day to die!”
Then he started to laugh, for Death was scared of him at that moment and cowered in its teepee.
I kind of envy him for this final stand.
April 29, 2021
I saw the movie that was based on this book in my thesis year of studying architecture in college. I didn't recall that until I started reading this book and had to Google the movie to find the release date, December 23, 1970. I also couldn't believe the movie was 50 years old or that this year was the 50th anniversary of my graduating college. I immediately sent out a reminder to all those guys with whom I shared many sleepless days and nights bent over drawing boards in an old repurposed bra and girdle factory that housed our college of architecture and art at UIC. I do recall that seeing that movie was a rare break from my studies and my research as my thesis resurrected a thesis option, architectural humanities, that hadn't be used in 20 years. I was tired of drawing boards and thought writing might be a change of pace so I spent my 5th year in the library and then at home typing. That movie came out during Christmas break and was something of a treat but I didn't become aware of the book until recently when I ran across some GR reviews of the book that piqued my interest. I ordered a copy and now after finishing it I am glad I didn't read this book earlier.
In the last few years I have managed to read several incredibly good books on the westward expansion of this country and the ensuing conflict that expansion caused with Native Americans. This reading allowed me to view this book in a way that wouldn't have been possible with an earlier reading. The book has a much greater impact if the reader is familiar with the history of our Indian Wars as this book is almost a mythological synopsis of the plight of the Plains Indians and the encroaching whites. There is almost no event or person of significance in that history that the protagonist of this tale was not present for or knew and had dealings with. I will also say, as much as my memory of the movie allows, that that movie was rarity in its loyalty to the book and its story. Not knowing the history involved in this story could have the reader of this fiction believing that the stories of Jack Crabb, the protagonist, are just that, fiction. They are not.
Since the book and the movie are now 50+ years old it is possible that many may be unfamiliar with the story of this book. It is about a man, Jack Crabb, claiming to be a 111 year man and lone survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn. A curious writer finds Crabb and induces him to tell his story. Crabb agrees and recounts his life from about the age of 10 when his family's small wagon train to the West encounters a band of Cheyenne Indians. Because of an excess of alcohol violence results and Jack ends up being adopted and raised by the Cheyenne chief. Again thanks to my prior reading I was able to appreciate the accuracy of the author in describing life in an Indian village and the social and governing structure of Indian tribes. Each chapter is an episode in Jack's back and forth life between living as an Indian and returning to life in white society as well as the people he meets along the way and the events he either witnesses or lives through. It would be an understatement to say that Jack had an extraordinary life and that is probably part of the author's intent, an intent I will need time to think about. The author makes a point through the fictional writer of saying that there is no way to determine how much, if any, of Jack's story is true and it is for the reader to decide. What I got from this read is that the more you know about our Western history the more this book will give you to think about. I will be doing that for awhile but in the meantime I strongly recommend this book. Enjoy.
In the last few years I have managed to read several incredibly good books on the westward expansion of this country and the ensuing conflict that expansion caused with Native Americans. This reading allowed me to view this book in a way that wouldn't have been possible with an earlier reading. The book has a much greater impact if the reader is familiar with the history of our Indian Wars as this book is almost a mythological synopsis of the plight of the Plains Indians and the encroaching whites. There is almost no event or person of significance in that history that the protagonist of this tale was not present for or knew and had dealings with. I will also say, as much as my memory of the movie allows, that that movie was rarity in its loyalty to the book and its story. Not knowing the history involved in this story could have the reader of this fiction believing that the stories of Jack Crabb, the protagonist, are just that, fiction. They are not.
Since the book and the movie are now 50+ years old it is possible that many may be unfamiliar with the story of this book. It is about a man, Jack Crabb, claiming to be a 111 year man and lone survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn. A curious writer finds Crabb and induces him to tell his story. Crabb agrees and recounts his life from about the age of 10 when his family's small wagon train to the West encounters a band of Cheyenne Indians. Because of an excess of alcohol violence results and Jack ends up being adopted and raised by the Cheyenne chief. Again thanks to my prior reading I was able to appreciate the accuracy of the author in describing life in an Indian village and the social and governing structure of Indian tribes. Each chapter is an episode in Jack's back and forth life between living as an Indian and returning to life in white society as well as the people he meets along the way and the events he either witnesses or lives through. It would be an understatement to say that Jack had an extraordinary life and that is probably part of the author's intent, an intent I will need time to think about. The author makes a point through the fictional writer of saying that there is no way to determine how much, if any, of Jack's story is true and it is for the reader to decide. What I got from this read is that the more you know about our Western history the more this book will give you to think about. I will be doing that for awhile but in the meantime I strongly recommend this book. Enjoy.
January 31, 2023
If you know your Old West history, you’ll really enjoy this novel. And while the consistent racist remarks by the protagonist is off-putting, I couldn’t deny that this was a well researched and overall compelling read about a white man’s journey through both the white and “indian” worlds in a very violent period of American history.
You’ll encounter all the notables characters you’ve read about in the past (Calamity Jane, Kit Carson, Wyatt Earp, General Custer, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, etc) and learn about Jack Crabb’s interactions with many tribes (Creek, Cheyenne, Lakota, Comanche, Kiowa, Crow, Pawnee, Arikara, etc).
You’ll read about the United States in transition, from the building of the transcontinental railroad and the mass killings of the bison herds, to the growth of small towns all over the country (Abilene, Dodge City, Santa Fe, Kansas City, etc).
I recently watched the 1970 film adaptation, and while I like Dustin Hoffman as much as the next guy, the film was a bit too cartoonish for my liking… it was nowhere near as good as the book (as is usually the case).
Much like Robert Thorp’s 1958 novel Crow Killer, despite the racist comments of the protagonist, there’s an authenticity to the writing. So many little accurate historical details are peppered throughout the narrative. The overall message of the book is pro-native american. But be forewarned, if you’re a First Nations person, there will be some parts reading this book where you’ll think “Fxck this book!’.
It’s not a classic, but I’d say it’s a very good novel about the Old West.
3.5 rounded up.
You’ll encounter all the notables characters you’ve read about in the past (Calamity Jane, Kit Carson, Wyatt Earp, General Custer, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, etc) and learn about Jack Crabb’s interactions with many tribes (Creek, Cheyenne, Lakota, Comanche, Kiowa, Crow, Pawnee, Arikara, etc).
You’ll read about the United States in transition, from the building of the transcontinental railroad and the mass killings of the bison herds, to the growth of small towns all over the country (Abilene, Dodge City, Santa Fe, Kansas City, etc).
I recently watched the 1970 film adaptation, and while I like Dustin Hoffman as much as the next guy, the film was a bit too cartoonish for my liking… it was nowhere near as good as the book (as is usually the case).
Much like Robert Thorp’s 1958 novel Crow Killer, despite the racist comments of the protagonist, there’s an authenticity to the writing. So many little accurate historical details are peppered throughout the narrative. The overall message of the book is pro-native american. But be forewarned, if you’re a First Nations person, there will be some parts reading this book where you’ll think “Fxck this book!’.
It’s not a classic, but I’d say it’s a very good novel about the Old West.
3.5 rounded up.
December 14, 2011
Better than the movie, maybe, but not by much.
Whatever you think about the conflict between the Plains Indians and the white man, it's hard to identify with a "hero" who is really neither red nor white in his loyalty, who consistently takes the low road and whose outlook on life is completely mean-spirited and sleazy.
Now I'm no stranger to anti-heroes. I cheered for Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE as a naive young thing and I thrilled to the murderous violence of Lamar Pye in Stephen Hunter's DIRTY WHITE BOYS, not to mention the exploits of Blue Duck (a much, much tougher version of a man caught between the red and white worlds) in Larry McMurtry's LONESOME DOVE.
The thing is, an anti-hero has to be tough. He has to be capable. He has to be ruthless. He can't just be a small-time chiseler, a weak-willed opportunist who drifts from one petty scam to another. Jack Crabbe is just . . . a crab. A bottom feeder scuttling along, feeding on death. It's not funny. It's not cute.
It's just . . . really dreary after a while.
Whatever you think about the conflict between the Plains Indians and the white man, it's hard to identify with a "hero" who is really neither red nor white in his loyalty, who consistently takes the low road and whose outlook on life is completely mean-spirited and sleazy.
Now I'm no stranger to anti-heroes. I cheered for Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE as a naive young thing and I thrilled to the murderous violence of Lamar Pye in Stephen Hunter's DIRTY WHITE BOYS, not to mention the exploits of Blue Duck (a much, much tougher version of a man caught between the red and white worlds) in Larry McMurtry's LONESOME DOVE.
The thing is, an anti-hero has to be tough. He has to be capable. He has to be ruthless. He can't just be a small-time chiseler, a weak-willed opportunist who drifts from one petty scam to another. Jack Crabbe is just . . . a crab. A bottom feeder scuttling along, feeding on death. It's not funny. It's not cute.
It's just . . . really dreary after a while.
July 15, 2020
(Original review, based on reading it perhaps 25 years ago):
An old book well worth hunting down and reading, or re-reading.
If you were to make a list of every trait that makes somebody a human being (as opposed to a Human Being, which was one of the sub-groups described in this book), it might look something like:
-humor
-sense of the absurd
-kindness
-vanity
-lack of self-awareness
...and you could go on and on and on. But whatever you came up with, you would find one of the best literary examples of that trait ever written in this book. And to weave this into an interesting plot and add genuine heartache?
Why wasn't Thomas Berger more famous? I can't understand it.
==========(New review, based on reading in July, 2020):==========
While I didn't enjoy this reading quite as much as the first, it is mostly because I remembered so much of it despite the many years between readings, and thus the element of surprise was lost. Credit the author for creating three characters (Jack Crab, Old Lodge Skins and Ralph Fielding Snell) who are quite simply unforgettable.
Old Lodge Skins in particular strikes me as one of the greatest characters in American literature. One hundred and seventy years after the events portrayed in this book took place, his frequent pontifications about the way things are and the right way and being present in the moment would not sound out of place in most corporate training seminars. (At least for corporations headquartered in California.) At the end of the day, though, I think he resonates with us because, although part of a vilified racial subgroup, he lived his life as he chose and maintained his dignity. This is quite a seductive fantasy for modern white readers, caught in the queasy knowledge of their own complicity, to varying extents, in our current societal problems.
His story is filtered through two layers of interpretation, both of whom are clearly identified as unreliable narrators. These are the other two characters I've mentioned -- Jack Crabb, the narrator of the story, and Ralph Snell, the one to whom the story is being told.
One of the amazing things about this book is how relevant it still feels. White culture is still hell-bent on destroying anything that stands in the way of profits, even while individuals within this culture value what is being lost. Probably the most amazing thing about Berger's achievement is that it works as pure entertainment; it works as a historical primer; it works as a sociological study of the Plains Indians; it works as sharp-edged social criticism, and finally it works as a philosophical exploration of how to live your life.
What it absolutely doesn't do is delve much into the lives of women, and this is probably the thing that struck me most between my reading as a high-schooler and now. Your enjoyment may diminish as a result. But for me, I still regard this as a pinnacle, if not the pinnacle, of America fiction.
(Unrelated aside: I have traveled extensively in the area of the Powder River and Bighorn Basin, where much of this story takes place, and all that fresh air and sunshine out there no doubt enhanced my enjoyment of this. I hope and pray that this area remains the lovely stretch of country it is today and isn't wiped out by coal extraction or anything similar.)
An old book well worth hunting down and reading, or re-reading.
If you were to make a list of every trait that makes somebody a human being (as opposed to a Human Being, which was one of the sub-groups described in this book), it might look something like:
-humor
-sense of the absurd
-kindness
-vanity
-lack of self-awareness
...and you could go on and on and on. But whatever you came up with, you would find one of the best literary examples of that trait ever written in this book. And to weave this into an interesting plot and add genuine heartache?
Why wasn't Thomas Berger more famous? I can't understand it.
==========(New review, based on reading in July, 2020):==========
While I didn't enjoy this reading quite as much as the first, it is mostly because I remembered so much of it despite the many years between readings, and thus the element of surprise was lost. Credit the author for creating three characters (Jack Crab, Old Lodge Skins and Ralph Fielding Snell) who are quite simply unforgettable.
Old Lodge Skins in particular strikes me as one of the greatest characters in American literature. One hundred and seventy years after the events portrayed in this book took place, his frequent pontifications about the way things are and the right way and being present in the moment would not sound out of place in most corporate training seminars. (At least for corporations headquartered in California.) At the end of the day, though, I think he resonates with us because, although part of a vilified racial subgroup, he lived his life as he chose and maintained his dignity. This is quite a seductive fantasy for modern white readers, caught in the queasy knowledge of their own complicity, to varying extents, in our current societal problems.
His story is filtered through two layers of interpretation, both of whom are clearly identified as unreliable narrators. These are the other two characters I've mentioned -- Jack Crabb, the narrator of the story, and Ralph Snell, the one to whom the story is being told.
One of the amazing things about this book is how relevant it still feels. White culture is still hell-bent on destroying anything that stands in the way of profits, even while individuals within this culture value what is being lost. Probably the most amazing thing about Berger's achievement is that it works as pure entertainment; it works as a historical primer; it works as a sociological study of the Plains Indians; it works as sharp-edged social criticism, and finally it works as a philosophical exploration of how to live your life.
What it absolutely doesn't do is delve much into the lives of women, and this is probably the thing that struck me most between my reading as a high-schooler and now. Your enjoyment may diminish as a result. But for me, I still regard this as a pinnacle, if not the pinnacle, of America fiction.
(Unrelated aside: I have traveled extensively in the area of the Powder River and Bighorn Basin, where much of this story takes place, and all that fresh air and sunshine out there no doubt enhanced my enjoyment of this. I hope and pray that this area remains the lovely stretch of country it is today and isn't wiped out by coal extraction or anything similar.)
October 23, 2014
The movie with Dustin Hoffman was very well done & follows the book fairly well, but the book captures the character even better. He's not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination. He lives a long time & through some very interesting history. Living with the Indians & then scouting for Custer at the Little Big Horn, a fight against the same indians he lived with. There's a gritty, real feel to the entire story.
October 20, 2019
A good example of why it’s worth reading old books that I’ve read before, this one has been called an American masterpiece by Larry McMurty and “The very best novel ever about the American West” by the New York Times Book Review. I enthusiastically agree with both assessments.
Narrated in the voice of its 111 year old protagonist Jack Crabb who was raised by white parents, kidnapped by Cheyenne Indians at the age of 10 and given the name of Little Big Man, the novel is a rollicking adventure through the American West in the last part of the 19th century.
One of the things that makes the book so interesting is the way Jack moves back and forth between the white and Cheyenne worlds. “I kept telling myself I was basically an Indian, just as when among Indians I kept seeing how I was really white to the core.” His dual identity left him with strong ties to both cultures and underscored the major differences between both of them.
The book takes the reader on a spirited ride through many iconic moments in the history of the West as Jack relates his experiences as a Cheyenne warrior, U.S. Calvary Scout, gambler, muleskinner, buffalo hunter, shop keeper, freight hauler and gold prospector. Along the way he meets many legendary characters associated with the wild west, including Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Kit Carson, as well as Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, George Armstrong Custer and others who were part of the 7th Calvary at the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Writing at a time when the prevailing sentiment towards Native Americans was largely a mixture of unfortunate stereotypes, Thomas Berger’s book is noteworthy for his humane portrayal of Cheyenne Indians and their culture from a realistic, even sympathetic perspective without ever romanticizing or sentimentalizing them.
Set against the backdrop of what was one of the most shameful eras in our country’s history, Berger doesn’t mince words when writing about the atrocities that were committed by the US Government against the Indian nations as well as the savage things the Indians did to retaliate. Writing in the richly colloquial voice of Jack Crabb/Little Big Man, Thomas Berger has created an unforgettable character we can’t help but love despite his many shortcomings. I listened to the audible version of this book and the narrator, Aaron Baker, did a fantastic job making all the characters come to life. It made it all the more difficult to put the book down when I had to.
Narrated in the voice of its 111 year old protagonist Jack Crabb who was raised by white parents, kidnapped by Cheyenne Indians at the age of 10 and given the name of Little Big Man, the novel is a rollicking adventure through the American West in the last part of the 19th century.
One of the things that makes the book so interesting is the way Jack moves back and forth between the white and Cheyenne worlds. “I kept telling myself I was basically an Indian, just as when among Indians I kept seeing how I was really white to the core.” His dual identity left him with strong ties to both cultures and underscored the major differences between both of them.
The book takes the reader on a spirited ride through many iconic moments in the history of the West as Jack relates his experiences as a Cheyenne warrior, U.S. Calvary Scout, gambler, muleskinner, buffalo hunter, shop keeper, freight hauler and gold prospector. Along the way he meets many legendary characters associated with the wild west, including Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Kit Carson, as well as Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, George Armstrong Custer and others who were part of the 7th Calvary at the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Writing at a time when the prevailing sentiment towards Native Americans was largely a mixture of unfortunate stereotypes, Thomas Berger’s book is noteworthy for his humane portrayal of Cheyenne Indians and their culture from a realistic, even sympathetic perspective without ever romanticizing or sentimentalizing them.
Set against the backdrop of what was one of the most shameful eras in our country’s history, Berger doesn’t mince words when writing about the atrocities that were committed by the US Government against the Indian nations as well as the savage things the Indians did to retaliate. Writing in the richly colloquial voice of Jack Crabb/Little Big Man, Thomas Berger has created an unforgettable character we can’t help but love despite his many shortcomings. I listened to the audible version of this book and the narrator, Aaron Baker, did a fantastic job making all the characters come to life. It made it all the more difficult to put the book down when I had to.
January 18, 2019
Books as great as this one make me happy that I spend much of my reading time on older novels. I started My Big Fat Reading Project initially as a method of learning American literature. While the project has expanded to include 20th century literature in general, it is surely accomplishing that original goal.
Thomas Berger, who died in 2014, was born in Cincinnati, OH, in 1924. He wrote 23 novels and though he was admired by critics and had many devoted readers, he is most widely known for Little Big Man due to the 1970 movie adaptation starring Dustin Hoffman.
I was impressed by his two earlier novels, Crazy in Berlin and Reinhart in Love, for their satirical take first on WWII army life and then on a soldier attempting to re-enter American society after the war. Little Big Man, while retaining that satirical bite, is historical fiction.
Set in the mid-1800s on America's Great Plains, still very much the Wild West, it is the life story of Jack Crabb who is looking back from the age of 111. As a boy he was captured and adopted by the Cheyenne. He returned to white civilization in his teens but forever had a bond with the Cheyenne and claims to be the only white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn, also known as Custer's Last Stand.
I have no doubt that the history in the book is accurate. It is also exciting. That history however is a frame on which the author examines the systematic conquest of the West by white settlers and the American government. Due to Jack Crabb's intimate knowledge of the Cheyenne, much of this examination is accomplished through the eyes of the Native Americans who suffered through what was nothing less than genocide.
The most interesting aspect of Berger's tale, for me, is his insight into the clash of cultures. It is not that the Natives were peace loving nature freaks but that the two approaches to living were quite diametrically opposed. Berger accomplishes this explication with humor and heart.
When I was a girl, I was fascinated by the Annie Oakley I saw on TV. I wanted to be her and organized all the kids in the neighborhood to re-enact her story almost every day one summer. Our bikes were our horses.
Due to that early infatuation I have read my share of Westerns and seen many of the movies. By 1964, when Little Big Man was published, I was finishing high school and had moved on to present day teenage concerns. Had I read this novel then I would have looked back on my Annie Oakley days and laughed. Those Indians we learned about in school and on TV were the white man's version.
Now we have novels written by Native Americans but Little Big Man may have been a bridge to that. In it you can learn quite a bit about the views and ways of the peoples whose lands we stole. Though it was perhaps an inevitable historical progression, I feel it was a loss to humanity that continues to play out in our post colonial times. Little Big Man may be the most enlightening and entertaining Western I have ever read.
Thomas Berger, who died in 2014, was born in Cincinnati, OH, in 1924. He wrote 23 novels and though he was admired by critics and had many devoted readers, he is most widely known for Little Big Man due to the 1970 movie adaptation starring Dustin Hoffman.
I was impressed by his two earlier novels, Crazy in Berlin and Reinhart in Love, for their satirical take first on WWII army life and then on a soldier attempting to re-enter American society after the war. Little Big Man, while retaining that satirical bite, is historical fiction.
Set in the mid-1800s on America's Great Plains, still very much the Wild West, it is the life story of Jack Crabb who is looking back from the age of 111. As a boy he was captured and adopted by the Cheyenne. He returned to white civilization in his teens but forever had a bond with the Cheyenne and claims to be the only white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn, also known as Custer's Last Stand.
I have no doubt that the history in the book is accurate. It is also exciting. That history however is a frame on which the author examines the systematic conquest of the West by white settlers and the American government. Due to Jack Crabb's intimate knowledge of the Cheyenne, much of this examination is accomplished through the eyes of the Native Americans who suffered through what was nothing less than genocide.
The most interesting aspect of Berger's tale, for me, is his insight into the clash of cultures. It is not that the Natives were peace loving nature freaks but that the two approaches to living were quite diametrically opposed. Berger accomplishes this explication with humor and heart.
When I was a girl, I was fascinated by the Annie Oakley I saw on TV. I wanted to be her and organized all the kids in the neighborhood to re-enact her story almost every day one summer. Our bikes were our horses.
Due to that early infatuation I have read my share of Westerns and seen many of the movies. By 1964, when Little Big Man was published, I was finishing high school and had moved on to present day teenage concerns. Had I read this novel then I would have looked back on my Annie Oakley days and laughed. Those Indians we learned about in school and on TV were the white man's version.
Now we have novels written by Native Americans but Little Big Man may have been a bridge to that. In it you can learn quite a bit about the views and ways of the peoples whose lands we stole. Though it was perhaps an inevitable historical progression, I feel it was a loss to humanity that continues to play out in our post colonial times. Little Big Man may be the most enlightening and entertaining Western I have ever read.
March 13, 2013
Sometimes a book is a good friend. Not "like" a good friend. An actual friend. You open your eyes in the morning and you remember that it is there, your friend, and you know you'll get through. This book was a good friend. Maybe it was Jack Crabb's (the narrator) unique, funny, irreverent, wise, one-hundred and eleven-year-old voice that sparked the friendship and kept it going. For a few days there, I sat next to Jack, by A fireside, listening to stories about his life growing up with the Cheyenne, about gold mines, poker games, gun fighters, Custer's battles. Or maybe it was Berger's respect for courage in its different colors, shapes and sizes that sealed our bond. It could have been the book's touch - you know, not heavy, but substantial. Light but not silly. Comforting but challenging. Inspiring. Giving you strength and humor. How hard is that find? As hard as a good friend.
July 13, 2026
When I told my close friend I had just finished reading Little Big Man, I learned he’d never heard of the 1970 film starring Dustin Hoffman and Dan George, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Well, my buddy was only 15 when the movie came out, and I assume it passed right over his head. But not mine.
I found the book, first published in 1964, in the little library box across the street from our house. Even when a movie is great, often the book is better, so I started reading. First came a dry but useful introduction by a University of Iowa professor. Next came a so-called Foreword by the fictional character Ralph Fielding Snell, someone whose pompous, comedic role could have been performed by W.C. Fields. Mr. Snell purports to have recorded the oral history spoken by Jack Crabb, age 121, in a nursing home. The book is an extended monologue in the voice (and grammar) of old Jack Crabb, although the story covers only his first 34 years of life.
The overall theme contrasts two clashing cultures: white pioneer settlers moving westward from Missouri, and Indigenous Americans, exemplified by Cheyennes, who call themselves “the Human Beings.”
At age 10, some Cheyennes kidnap Jack. Their chief, Old Lodge Skins, adopts him. Over the next several years, they thoroughly indoctrinate Jack in their ways, including their language. His family now consists not so much of his older sister Caroline, who escaped her kidnappers, or his brother Bill, who also got away, but of the chief and his wives.
Then a skirmish with the U.S. Cavalry leads to a sudden change of Jack’s identity. As a teenager, he is adopted by a clergyman and his wife (portrayed in the film by Faye Dunaway). Now he has a new family. Jack develops a burning crush on his “mother” as she teaches him to read, broadens his limited vocabulary, and dresses him in fine clothing. He is not the only one, however, to desire her. He peeks though a door and sees her embracing a store owner. Disillusioned, Jack runs away.
Before long, he joins two other men in trying to run a general store in the emerging town of Denver. His partners send him to Kansas City to buy supplies. As he travels, his former tribal associates ambush him, which leads him back to his former place among the Cheyennes. Without giving too much more of the story away, I hope you imagine Jack surviving by hanging onto a pendulum swinging between two cultures.
In addition to his Cheyenne family, he marries a Swedish woman with whom he has a son. He loses them in an Indian raid. Later he marries a Cheyenne woman and adopts her son but loses them in a Calvary raid. He takes on a young harlot who, he seems to believe, might be his niece, and elevates her to the point where she eventually marries a man who serves in Washington, D.C. as a Cabinet Secretary.
Besides these intimate relations, Jack has two friends from his childhood among the Cheyenne tribe. Younger Bear is his nemesis and becomes a “Contrary,” a type of person who does everything backward and against conventional behavior. Little Horse becomes a heemaneh, which today we might associate with a transexual identity. These are acceptable roles in the broad-minded society of the Cheyennes.
In addition to his endeavor with the Denver general store, Jack bounces from job to job. To build up enough wealth to support his “niece,” he becomes a professional gambler, which links him to Wild Bill Hickok, who trains Jack as a gunslinger. He also has a run-in with Wyatt Earp. When the U.S. decides to exterminate the buffalo (bison), Jack gets a long-range rifle, hires a skinner, and piles up money by selling the hides.
Three battles are decisive in the onward march of settlers, miners, and the transcontinental railroad, with the help of the U.S. Army. Sand Creek is an infamous massacre. Later, under General George Armstrong Custer, the Army chases the Cheyenne from their villages at the Washita. And finally, Jack witnesses Custer’s Last Stand at the Little Big Horn. Jack claims to be the last person to have seen Custer alive.
It’s the little details of his experiences, day by day, year by year for a quarter of a century, recalled a century later, that color Jack Crabb’s story. The book is historical fiction, filled with imaginary characters and encounters, but recalling an outline of changes that occurred in the Great Plains in the mid-19th century. For entertainment, this book ranks up with Huckleberry Finn. It’s funny, but also tragic.
It’s important to remember that when Berger wrote this book, many of the social issues that emerged in the 1960s and since then had not yet come to the fore. I didn’t read this book expecting the most accurate anthropology or sociology of tribal life. I appreciate the extent to which it craftily critiques Manifest Destiny (settler colonialism) and racism through the ambivalence of Jack Crabb. I feel fortunate to have come across a copy of this book, and I recommend it if you haven’t already read it.
December 12, 2023
I bought this amazing satirical novel (a British edition: London: Eyre & Spottiswoode) when the film came out. It features Dustin Hoffman on the front cover (as the title character when he lived as a Cheyenne with the Human Beings) and on the back cover as White Man Jack Crabb - the teller of many a tale during his 111 years of existence. The book was published in 1965 (U.S. edition: late 1964); the original dust jacket with my copy was altered to coincide with the excellent 1970 Arthur Penn film version.
I learned so much from this magnificent novel. With his unforgettable characters, Thomas Berger painted a panoramic, quite extraordinary history of the American West with emphasis on the tragedy of First Nations Peoples during the turbulent period of western expansion. In parts hilariously absurd; other parts tragically sad. But always profound, educational and vastly entertaining.
This brilliantly written novel is a treasured item in my fiction collection. Not only a personal favorite but in my opinion, one of the best books ever written about the American West.
I learned so much from this magnificent novel. With his unforgettable characters, Thomas Berger painted a panoramic, quite extraordinary history of the American West with emphasis on the tragedy of First Nations Peoples during the turbulent period of western expansion. In parts hilariously absurd; other parts tragically sad. But always profound, educational and vastly entertaining.
This brilliantly written novel is a treasured item in my fiction collection. Not only a personal favorite but in my opinion, one of the best books ever written about the American West.
January 14, 2025
Not only a masterpiece, but a classic. I hope to read all of Thomas Berger. Worth reading again.
February 2, 2023
A monumental book that I enjoyed and would have loved had I liked Jack Crabb as a person. That's a 'me' thing I think, though...
July 24, 2016
Have you ever been reading a book and as the end approached you were sad that the end was coming? You know eventually you are going to have to put it down. It is like the last day of a really great vacation and you know tomorrow you are back to work. It is genuinely one of the ways I know how much I liked or even loved a book. This would describe how I felt near the end of reading, “Little Big Man”. For me, a remarkable read.
I had seen the movie before and had thoroughly enjoyed it. The title popped up again when searching for a great western to read. I turned also to the reviews to read what others were saying about. I knew from the reviews, particularly Laura C.’s that this was a read for me. So the decision was made and “Little Big Man” was added to my reading list.
The book starts with an Introduction and a forward. If you are anything like me, I typically skip one or both. My advice is “Don’t.” Luckily, I started with the forward, which by the way is the true starting of the book.
The forward is a wonderfully funny journey, laden with snide remarks and humorous detours, written by the fictional “Ralph Fielding Snell” author and “Man of Letters”. We eventually arrive at an introduction to Jack Crab, our hero, but not before insulting feminist, nurses, doctors, ex-wives, and even his father. The forward has all of the dings of an old time shooting gallery.
After the forward, the book transitions to Jack, aka “Little Big Man”, recollecting his adventures through the 25 years of the settling of the Old American West. The story continually bounces Jack between the two competing cultures in the American West, Indian and white. Through Jack’s eyes we get a glimpse into the reality of the settling of the America West. The legend/myth of how the West was won is exposed. Some of it is funny, lord knows every huckster in North America took the opportunity to make a buck, Jack included. Some of it very tragic and Jack’s tale has its share of tragedy.
Along with the debunking of the Old American West, the story actually does a really good job of showing the humanity of everyone through Jack and his life in these years. Countless things happen to Jack along the way and most of his reactions to those events are very relatable. Jack really grew on me by the end of the book, as did several of the other characters. The epilogue so wisely says, “He must be seen as a product of his place, time, and circumstance.” That is true of all of us.
I found I could really relate to this book and particularly its characters. If you are looking for a story of the Old American West or a book you just can’t put down, I would highly recommend “Little Big Man”. It is a remarkable read.
I had seen the movie before and had thoroughly enjoyed it. The title popped up again when searching for a great western to read. I turned also to the reviews to read what others were saying about. I knew from the reviews, particularly Laura C.’s that this was a read for me. So the decision was made and “Little Big Man” was added to my reading list.
The book starts with an Introduction and a forward. If you are anything like me, I typically skip one or both. My advice is “Don’t.” Luckily, I started with the forward, which by the way is the true starting of the book.
The forward is a wonderfully funny journey, laden with snide remarks and humorous detours, written by the fictional “Ralph Fielding Snell” author and “Man of Letters”. We eventually arrive at an introduction to Jack Crab, our hero, but not before insulting feminist, nurses, doctors, ex-wives, and even his father. The forward has all of the dings of an old time shooting gallery.
After the forward, the book transitions to Jack, aka “Little Big Man”, recollecting his adventures through the 25 years of the settling of the Old American West. The story continually bounces Jack between the two competing cultures in the American West, Indian and white. Through Jack’s eyes we get a glimpse into the reality of the settling of the America West. The legend/myth of how the West was won is exposed. Some of it is funny, lord knows every huckster in North America took the opportunity to make a buck, Jack included. Some of it very tragic and Jack’s tale has its share of tragedy.
Along with the debunking of the Old American West, the story actually does a really good job of showing the humanity of everyone through Jack and his life in these years. Countless things happen to Jack along the way and most of his reactions to those events are very relatable. Jack really grew on me by the end of the book, as did several of the other characters. The epilogue so wisely says, “He must be seen as a product of his place, time, and circumstance.” That is true of all of us.
I found I could really relate to this book and particularly its characters. If you are looking for a story of the Old American West or a book you just can’t put down, I would highly recommend “Little Big Man”. It is a remarkable read.
November 19, 2023
Thomas Berger's Little Big Man provides a scabrous, darkly amusing take on the Old West. The story's told through the eyes of Jack Crabb, who spends his improbably eventful life flitting between white and indigenous cultures on the frontier, placing him at the forefront of key historical events. He's a warrior with the Cheyenne, the wayward charge of a pompous missionary and a survivor of the Washita Massacre; a gunfighter under the tutelage of Wild Bill Hickok and a scout for George Custer at Little Bighorn, of which he becomes "the only white survivor." To modern readers, the book's main shortcoming is presenting Native American events through the eyes of a white character; fortunately, Berger is extremely sympathetic (though unsentimental) towards the Cheyenne, painting them as a complex society of wise old elders (Old Lodge Skins, unforgettably played by Chief Dan George in the film adaptation), ruthless warriors and tough-minded women. He doesn't offer any glaring author's messages, either, allowing the contradictions of Native life and the savage hypocrisy of settler culture to speak for itself. The lively sketches of historical figures like Hickok, Kit Carson and Wyatt Earp are engaging, although his Custer (monologuing megalomaniacally amidst the slaughter of his troops) is a shameless caricature; but then, it's no more inaccurate than the uber-heroic Errol Flynn verison. Berger's ingenious creation inspired similar history-trotting protagonists from Forrest Gump to Harry Flashman, along with a well-regarded film adaptation starring Dustin Hoffman, but his novel remains fresh, entertaining and unique.
May 28, 2017
This is not "the very best novel every about American west" as the NYT claimed (years after they first panned it), but it did pave the way for some contenders like True Grit by Charles Portis, Lonesome Dove by McMurtry or take your pick from Cormac McCarthy's work (I'm partial to Blood Meridian, The Crossing and No Country for Old Men). It was meant to puncture the myth of the west, and it does that to an certain extent, though as McMurtry says in his intro to the 50th anniversary edition, myths have a way of coming through unscathed. It works as a straightforward tall tale (hence all the Mark Twain comparisons), but it also works as a con job, which I take to be Berger's point about the romanticized west. The introduction and postscript by "a man of letters" are portraits of gullibility, and almost as funny as the main body of the text. Recommended (but read some McMurtry, McCarthy, Portis or Elmore Leonard first, not necessarily in that order).
Maybe my favorite quotation from the book (though there were many contenders): "I wasn't long in discovering it is a rare person in the white world who wants to hear what the other fella says. All the more so when the other fella really knows what he is talking about."
Maybe my favorite quotation from the book (though there were many contenders): "I wasn't long in discovering it is a rare person in the white world who wants to hear what the other fella says. All the more so when the other fella really knows what he is talking about."
June 3, 2010
n this book, narrated by a prissy bachelor of independent means, we meet a wonderful character who, Forrestt Gump-like, takes us through the development of the American west. Jack Crabb's family was ambushed by a tribe of Cheyenne on the way to Utah to meet up with the Mormons. (His father, a preacher of some originality, was intrigued by the liberality of the doctrine,and felt they would be excellent neighbors.) Jack was raised among the Human Beings, as the Cheyenne call themselves, but meanders through both white and Indian worlds in the course of the 24 years between his abduction in 1852 and Custer's last stand on the Little Bighorn in July of 1876, where his tale ends. Through Jack we become an observer of the misunderstandings on both sides that fueled the genocide of the American Indian. It is not a heavy handed liberal rant against the white man, nor a syrupy sugar coating of Native American wisdom. It is an important book in the way that history is important. It is authentic, utterly charming, and believable. By the end, however, you find that you have been gently and unflinching asked the damning question, “What does it mean to be human ?”
September 8, 2025
“Forrest Gump does the Wild West.” That is the book’s best angle and its enduring charm. Jack Crabb pinballs through saloon brawls, frontier wars, buffalo hunts, and boomtown schemes, a picaresque that delights in puncturing Western myth while keeping the jokes quick and the danger real. The running refrain, “I was only sixteen,” “I was in my twenties,” works as both gag and metronome, underscoring how quickly a life can be swallowed by a few violent decades. The frame promises a centenarian’s saga in the 1950s, yet the heart of the story lives in a tightly compressed twenty-odd years where history moves at a sprint.
Berger’s world feels crowded in a good way. Cheyenne contraries, Dog Soldier codes, and the awkward collisions of cultures give the novel grit beyond parody. The voice stays nimble, part tall tale, part testimony, with set pieces that land like folktales told around a fire.
The drawback is simple. Length. The sprawl begins to dull the edge, episodes blur, and the momentum that once felt exuberant starts to feel like overstay. Being in this world for so long softens the impact of the best chapters.
As a waypoint in the Western’s evolution, it sits neatly between the old Hollywood myth and later, harsher revisions of the genre. Funny, sharp, often humane. Just longer than it needs to be.
Berger’s world feels crowded in a good way. Cheyenne contraries, Dog Soldier codes, and the awkward collisions of cultures give the novel grit beyond parody. The voice stays nimble, part tall tale, part testimony, with set pieces that land like folktales told around a fire.
The drawback is simple. Length. The sprawl begins to dull the edge, episodes blur, and the momentum that once felt exuberant starts to feel like overstay. Being in this world for so long softens the impact of the best chapters.
As a waypoint in the Western’s evolution, it sits neatly between the old Hollywood myth and later, harsher revisions of the genre. Funny, sharp, often humane. Just longer than it needs to be.
July 17, 2026
RTC. . .an old favorite revisited. . .
September 14, 2018
I first read this book ages ago, as part of the fabled "summer reading list" that American public schools are always assigning. It must have been between 8th grade (the end of middle school) and 9th grade (the beginning of high school) because I wasn't yet aware that teachers never actually check if you did any of the summer reading. So I read it, fully expecting to be quizzed on it or have to write a report about it or something, only to discover that I needn't have bothered. But I remember loving it.
A few years later I watched the movie as part of a Film Study class and remember loving that too.
But here's the thing: time passed and I could no longer remember anything about the story. I remembered it's about a white man who lives among "Indins." I remembered in the movie Dustin Hoffman wears some seriously extreme makeup to play a seriously old man. I remembered enjoying it but I couldn't recount a single substantive detail about it. So I put it back on my "to-read" list and there it moldered, as I gave priority to every new title that came along with the excuse of "I've already read this one."
So I finally picked it up for another read, now more than twice the age I was when I first cracked the cover. And let me tell you... I kind of wish I hadn't. Time, experience, and the extreme caution of advancing age have spoiled this book for me. Or, more likely, spoiled me for this book.
The first thing I noticed is this book is long. WAY longer than I remembered, way longer than I would've thought I'd have had patience to read back in 1990-whatever-it-was. And the font is itty-bitty little tiny stuff, so it's actually even longer than it might seem. Did I read an abridged copy or something the first time through?
The second thing I noticed is that I seem no longer capable of enjoying a "captivity narrative" like this. When I was a lad, the "Cowboys and Indians" trope was just a fantasy. I never knew any Native Americans, I'd never been to the West. It might as well have been set on Mars, for all the knowledge I had of it. And that was cool to me; it was like a make-believe setting that had some basic rules outlined by TV and comics, most of which I now believe were spoofing the actual source material of the 50s and 60s by the time I got on the scene. But now I live in the American Southwest, I know some Native American guys, and this whole thing makes me uncomfortable. I can't for the life of me figure out if this is a white man appropriating another culture, or a genuine portayal of a historically marginalized people, or a satire of one or the other. There is a lot of action that grips your attention and a seeding through of one-liners and universal human truths about people being people no matter where they're from or what group they belong to, but there is also casual racism, broad stereotyping, misogyny and talk of rape... y'know, all that stuff that we as Americans said no longer existed in our culture and then in recent years have seen explode in an unforseen and ugly backlash against "PC Culture." So, is it a good thing for a white author to write a white character into a non-white culture for the purposes of prompting discussion and revealing some unvarnished truths via a "Mary Sue" character? Or am I misreading this whole thing and seeing conflict where it doesn't exist? The narrative voice alone is absolutely first-rate writing, and Jack Crabb as a character is a bigger-than-life American fiction in the vein of Mark Twain—a man who may or may not be telling the truth and may or may not have anybody's best interests but his own in mind.
4 stars out of 5. Entertainment that comes with a significant challenge to my moral compass. It's become a weird and antiquated cultural touchstone and that worries me, perhaps more than it needs to. But if we rate our fiction on writing talent alone, Berger has composed a quality story. And if we rate it based on its ability to challenge our modes of thinking and prompt self-reflection, then it's accomplished that goal for this reader, for sure. Though I'm having some trouble separating style from substance, I can't fault Berger's storytelling ability even if its content concerns me.
A few years later I watched the movie as part of a Film Study class and remember loving that too.
But here's the thing: time passed and I could no longer remember anything about the story. I remembered it's about a white man who lives among "Indins." I remembered in the movie Dustin Hoffman wears some seriously extreme makeup to play a seriously old man. I remembered enjoying it but I couldn't recount a single substantive detail about it. So I put it back on my "to-read" list and there it moldered, as I gave priority to every new title that came along with the excuse of "I've already read this one."
So I finally picked it up for another read, now more than twice the age I was when I first cracked the cover. And let me tell you... I kind of wish I hadn't. Time, experience, and the extreme caution of advancing age have spoiled this book for me. Or, more likely, spoiled me for this book.
The first thing I noticed is this book is long. WAY longer than I remembered, way longer than I would've thought I'd have had patience to read back in 1990-whatever-it-was. And the font is itty-bitty little tiny stuff, so it's actually even longer than it might seem. Did I read an abridged copy or something the first time through?
The second thing I noticed is that I seem no longer capable of enjoying a "captivity narrative" like this. When I was a lad, the "Cowboys and Indians" trope was just a fantasy. I never knew any Native Americans, I'd never been to the West. It might as well have been set on Mars, for all the knowledge I had of it. And that was cool to me; it was like a make-believe setting that had some basic rules outlined by TV and comics, most of which I now believe were spoofing the actual source material of the 50s and 60s by the time I got on the scene. But now I live in the American Southwest, I know some Native American guys, and this whole thing makes me uncomfortable. I can't for the life of me figure out if this is a white man appropriating another culture, or a genuine portayal of a historically marginalized people, or a satire of one or the other. There is a lot of action that grips your attention and a seeding through of one-liners and universal human truths about people being people no matter where they're from or what group they belong to, but there is also casual racism, broad stereotyping, misogyny and talk of rape... y'know, all that stuff that we as Americans said no longer existed in our culture and then in recent years have seen explode in an unforseen and ugly backlash against "PC Culture." So, is it a good thing for a white author to write a white character into a non-white culture for the purposes of prompting discussion and revealing some unvarnished truths via a "Mary Sue" character? Or am I misreading this whole thing and seeing conflict where it doesn't exist? The narrative voice alone is absolutely first-rate writing, and Jack Crabb as a character is a bigger-than-life American fiction in the vein of Mark Twain—a man who may or may not be telling the truth and may or may not have anybody's best interests but his own in mind.
4 stars out of 5. Entertainment that comes with a significant challenge to my moral compass. It's become a weird and antiquated cultural touchstone and that worries me, perhaps more than it needs to. But if we rate our fiction on writing talent alone, Berger has composed a quality story. And if we rate it based on its ability to challenge our modes of thinking and prompt self-reflection, then it's accomplished that goal for this reader, for sure. Though I'm having some trouble separating style from substance, I can't fault Berger's storytelling ability even if its content concerns me.
January 31, 2024
an uneven read in the first half. It's a pretty typical picaresque, nothing special but then somehow, surprisingly, amazingly, it soars in the back half. the introduction of Custer as a foil to Crabb/Little Big Man is genius. The slow build-up to the Battle of the Little Big Horn is masterful. And the end leaves us with a haunting sense of triumph and loss. A ghost of what was, haunting what is.
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