Little Big Man (novel)
1st edition cover
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| Author | Thomas Berger |
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| Cover artist | Bernard Brussel-Smith |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Picaresque novel |
| Publisher | Dial Press |
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Publication date
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1964 |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 440 pp |
| Preceded by | Reinhart in Love |
| Followed by | Killing Time |
Little Big Man is a 1964 novel by American author Thomas Berger. Often described as a satire or parody of the western genre, the book is a modern example of picaresque fiction. Berger made use of a large volume of overlooked first-person primary materials, such as diaries, letters, and memoirs, to fashion a wide-ranging and entertaining tale that comments on alienation, identity, and perceptions of reality. Easily Berger's best known work, Little Big Man was made into a popular film by Arthur Penn. It has been called "Berger's response to the great American myth of the frontier, representing as it does most of the central traditions of American literature."
The novel is structured as a recorded narrative of the purported exploits of 121-year-old Jack Crabb, a white male child raised by the Cheyenne nation, as he describes his wanderings across the nineteenth-century American West to Ralph Fielding Snell, a somewhat gullible "Man of Letters." Though unknown to conventional history, Crabb has supposedly crossed paths with many of the West's notable figures, including Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill, and George Armstrong Custer. At various times captured, rescued, escaped, and returned to or from both white and Native American societies of the time, Crabb also claims to be the "sole white survivor" of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
As Berger's protagonist ventures back and forth between the Plains Indians and the whites, he finds himself at home in neither culture. Similarly, as Jack's roles vary over the course of his wanderings, from Cheyenne warrior to Army scout to small-time huckster, etc., so does the style of the narrative, as Berger draws on the great variety of themes found in the Western genre.
Although the novel made it from hardback to paperback publication, sales were modest. Earning no serious critical attention at first, Little Big Man stayed on the literary scene through word-of-mouth.
In 1965, Berger received a Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Western Heritage Award, for Little Big Man.
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