The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping

Beautifully written, it will challenge your sheltered mind with raw, in-your-face glimpses of our brothers dying on the fringes of our society.

The book was touching and amazing to me. He is very poetic and so open and willing to write how he feels and what he is thinking. He writes things that most people would never dream to admit that is what they even thought about. Its wonderful. He is so real I love it. I have recommended this book to my friends and they love it as well. I was craving more when I was done with it. It was sensational. I read his other one as well and its just as good. This man is amazing. I would love to thank him for the insights he gave me and the way I was able to have his book help me in my life. I hope many more people can benifit from this mans writing as well. Nasdijj I say bravo to you, and Thank you.

Native American author Nasdijj delivers an unforgettable memoir with The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping, a chronicle of the death of his adopted son, a 12-year-old Navajo born with AIDS. Nasdijj, whose first son, also adopted, died of fetal alcohol syndrome, is persuaded to adopt Awee by the boy's parents, also AIDS patients. Against his better judgment, Nasdijj agrees. Taking on hopeless boys is something of an addiction with him, he admits. "I want the mad ones," Nasdijj writes. "The children who have had everything taken away from them. The children who are broken and mad enough to attempt to repair themselves. The children mad enough to spit and fight." Nasdijj makes some unorthodox decisions about how Awee should spend his last weeks of life, choices he suspects minivan moms would not approve of. Instead of hunkering down in a hospital or hospice, with pill bottles and intravenous drip close at hand, Nasdijj takes his son on a motorcycle to the coast, lets him play baseball, lets him spend the day in an auto repair shop and introduces him to several Indian rites of passage. Along the way, Nasdijj exposes the failure of America's health care system to provide relief for indigent AIDS patients, especially those on Indian reservations, where welfare hospitals may take as long as six weeks to return blood test results. Awee is frequently in and out of the hospital-with pneumonia, with terrible pain from nerve damage, with sarcoma. The most scathing criticism Nasdijj offers is the health care industry's failure to relieve a 12-year-old's pain. Here, Nasdijj runs up against a medical brick wall. Pain medications for children with AIDS haven't been developed, he writes, and doctors are unwilling to experiment. Despite the prevailing darkness and forgone conclusion of The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping, the book has wonderful moments of humor, whimsy and warmth. But the narrative's most important accomplishment may very well be its biting commentary on the neglect of AIDS patients in a complacent society that mistakenly believes the monster has been leashed.

This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I finished it weeks ago and still think about it so often it's haunting. A relative was reading the book and said, "read just the first two pages to get a sense of his writing..." Two days later, I emerged having finished the book--it was one of those books I just couldn't stop. Nasdijj's writing is beautiful--in many ways it seems to be the only kind of writing that could ever get close to what he wants to say. But above all, I felt this was a love story--of the truest and most beautiful kind, between a father and son who are not biologically related but who chose each other. Nasdijj's love for Awee is magnificent--it is inspiring and frightening for it points to the horrific lack of love in the rest of the world, and in our own private lives. To be able to love the way Nasdijj loves...And Awee is such a character! It's easy to see why Nasdijj loved him as he did. I too mourn for this boy. I feel honored to have been allowed to read this intimate story. I am deeply grateful to the author for allowing us into his heart and for introducing us to Awee (as well as Crow Dog). This book will stay with you for a long time, it will change the way you think about children with AIDs, about Native Americans in general, and about the politics of medicine. It changed the way I thought about love and parenting and life itself. Deep gratitude to Nasdijj. Read this book.

Reading this book encouraged me take more risks in loving others, it's cost me more and it's hurt more, but I am also more fully alive as a result.Nasdijj didn't always follow the 'accepted' rules of parenting with Awee and when he writes he doesn't always follow the rules with language. This upsets some people but I think - good for you Nasdijj. You don't get to new territory by traveling over the same ground.Nasdijj was heart-breakingly open with his son Awee and he brings this same openness with readers to his writing. I read somewhere he has been referred to as a national treasure. As a reader I treasure his willingness to be so open with his experiences and feelings.If you are tired of sentimental books about relationships that seem don't seem to delve much below the surface, you'll love Nasdijj's book.Oh and the patience and insight of Crow Dog, one of Nasdijj's other sons, is not to be missed as well.