THE RETURN OF LITTLE BIG MAN By Thomas Berger Little, Brown and Co. $25, 432 pp.

Imagine that you are able to go back to the American West and see what really happened at the OK Corral during the assassinations of Sitting Bull and Wild Bill Hickok and at the Battle of Little Big Horn. On the way, suppose you happen to stumble across Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley and even Queen Victoria, with whom you share a few drinks and swap stories and. This may sound like the plot for Bill and Ted's Excellent Wild West Adventure, but it is actually the basic premise of Thomas Berger's novel The Return of Little Big Man, which manages to pull off the often difficult task of effortlessly and effectively mingling fiction with history. The Return of Little Big Man is the continuation of the thoroughly entertaining story of Jack Crabb, also known as Little Big Man, an orphan raised by the Cheyenne; this novel picks up with Jack telling of his experiences after he survived the Battle of Little Big Horn. Those familiar with either the Dustin Hoffman film or the previous novel of Little Big Man might recall that Jack died at the age of 112, cutting short his retrospective narrative; however, Jack explains in the introduction to this book that he staged his death as a wily escape from a bad publishing contract. Initially, I was skeptical of this claim; it sounded like a suspiciously convenient excuse to bring out a sequel to the original, and very successful, first novel. However, Jack Crabb soon won me over with his humor and deft storytelling abilities.

At first Jack seems a bit trite because of his fabled old Western dialect of cute truisms and botched verbs, his "aw-shucks" likeability and his emphasis on his honest-to-God credibility. I was a bit critical about what might have been merely a tall-tale spun by a clever snake oil salesman, posing as a nice guy who had many incredible experiences. But the more I read, the more I was convinced of his absolute sincerity because of how human and tangible a character he really is. I thought I was listening to a storyteller speak rather than reading a novel, and sank comfortably and completely into his compelling story; the novel proves to be a fast-paced and admirably-crafted read, simple as a bedtime story but as educational as the best of history books.

At the beginning of the book, Jack makes friends with legendary sheriff Bat Masterson and meets his old friend Wild Bill Hickok once again, Wild Bill dies while under Jack's guard, and grieving Jack decided it is time to keep moving; Jack travels with Bat to Tombstone, the first of his many journeys. There, he sees Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, both mean and rather flawed heroes; Jack follows them to the Ok Corral anticipating trouble, and describes the misunderstandings leading to needless violence that happen in the legendary showdown.

Jack also acts as a translator for other Cheyenne in trouble, and makes friends with Sitting Bull and his people; through these experience, Jack exposes the tragedy of the Native American experience during this time with dignity and understanding. Some of the more amusing episodes in Jack's life have to do with a certain woman named Amanda, and Jack's attempts to turn his roughness into charm in order to win her. Through it all, Jack admits his mistakes gracefully and keeps his mind open to people very different from himself, while exposing the true natures of other people and events.

Novelist Thomas Berger responds to continuing fascination with the American West by distilling its sprawling, general history into the essence of this well-knit chronicle, Berger should be commended for his painstaking research, which allows him, through our personal tour-guide Jack, to make a complicated and convoluted history seem both very straightforward and very real; distant and lionized legends like Wild Bill Hickok become poignantly human through Jack's unique perspective and experience. In his novel The Return of little Big Man, Thomas Berger proves himself to be a master of the storytelling craft through an engaging narrative that tells history through fiction in the most fulfilling way.