November 15, 1998
By PETER BRICKLEBANK
By Karl H. Schlesier.
University of Oklahoma, $22.95.
n the late spring of 1885, five bands of Chiricahua Apaches decided to flee their reservation in Arizona, setting off the last great Apache war. This novel follows the fortunes of one of these groups, led by an Indian war captain named Josanie, as it struggles against the combined military might of the United States and Mexico. Brief alternating chapters present the action from both sides, including incendiary news clippings, thus providing the social context in which the tribe embarks on one last fight for its land. But the anthropological detail by which Karl H. Schlesier illustrates the Apaches' resourcefulness, spirituality and humanity gets in the way of his storytelling. With little character development, the individuals in his pages wind up being largely indistinguishable; what's missing is fiction's imaginative leap into feeling. ''Josanie's War'' is a readable and informative re-creation of a tragic episode in the history of the American West. Through its detailed documentation, it takes us into a harsh world, showing how injustice and prejudice proved despicably, needlessly destructive. But as a novel, it fails to explore the internal war that must have gripped these warriors just as fiercely.
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