When The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven was published by the Atlantic Monthly Press in 1993, it was the first of Alexie's books to be published by a major press. The book has been received well by audiences, and most critics give it high marks, too. Some critics note that the book shares themes that are common in Alexie's first three books. Says Susan B. Brill, in her 1997 entry on Alexie in the Dictionary of Literary Biography: "Survival is perhaps the omnipresent theme of these four books." On a similar note, in her Winter 2000/2001 Ploughshares article, Lynn Cline notes that Alexie's work "carries the weight of five centuries of colonization, retelling the American Indian struggle to survive, painting a clear, compelling, and often painful portrait of modern Indian life."

Specific critical discussion on The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is often marked by...