The American Storybag

The stories in THE AMERICAN STORYBAG are a fleeting yet incisive look at
American life, primarily on the road, but sometimes on or in the water, and have been
collected by Gerald Hausman since 1965. Some of the tales are very brief and may be
called "sudden stories". Many of them deal with human survival - an autistic boy lost in a
trackless swamp; a young woman who falls in love with a supernatural creature; a young
man who finds himself by finding his horse. Some of the tales are mere messages left on
a cell phone. Others, like the story Bimini Blue tell about a Navajo healing ceremony
given to a famous author who committed suicide. There are stories of ghosts, demons,
fearsome predators, and wise old men who take the innocent in hand and lead them on
the road to wisdom. These are tales of innocence and anguish, fantasy and fable, humor
and heart. In them we hear the voices of a lost America - an America of folk heroes fading
fast from view and crying out to be heard.

The Reviews

"Not since Mark Twain has a writer presented classic American storytelling
so honestly. Hausman is at his best with this collection, truly entertaining."

- Hilary Hemingway, author of Hemingway in Cuba, on The American Storybag


"...it [Tunkashila] is like the wind one hears on the plains, steady, running,
full of music."

- N. Scott Momaday, Pulitzer Prize-winning authorof House Made of Dawn


"...an eloquent tribute to the first great storytellers of America."

- The New York Times Book Review on Tunkashila